


Because I Never Told You

by Mnemosyne_Elegy



Series: Because Verse [3]
Category: Fairy Tail
Genre: Extra Closure, Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-14
Updated: 2019-08-08
Packaged: 2020-06-27 20:44:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 25,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19797433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mnemosyne_Elegy/pseuds/Mnemosyne_Elegy
Summary: Side stories to "Because I Need You to Stay". Lyon had once lamented to Natsu that he had never told Gray everything he needed to say. Now that Gray's back, Lyon isn't going to miss his chance again. Meanwhile, Gray hasn't been totally honest with his friends. He's hiding something that's hurting him the longer he keeps it secret, and it's time to come clean.





	1. Lyon

**Author's Note:**

> This piece just has two side stories to "Because I Need You to Stay", to give a little extra closure to the verse. The first part is in Lyon's POV and builds off the conversation he had with Natsu in chapter 11 of "Stay". I feel like he deserves some kind of last mention, since he played such an important role in the story but didn't have a major place in the epilogue.
> 
> Of course, the second part is in Gray's POV. Right now it's hovering just above 20k words, so I'm going to try cutting some things when I go back to edit it. But still...it's going to be really long x.x

There was every reason for Lyon to be happy. Gray was back to normal—or at least _mostly_ normal—and things were going great. And Lyon _was_ happy. He was so happy that his heart hurt sometimes, because he still couldn't quite believe that Gray was well and truly back after everything that had happened.

But at the same time, something was still bothering him. It was just a little niggling thought in the back of his mind that he could mostly ignore, but which still tugged at his awareness occasionally. Still, he was mostly able to put it out of his mind until something finally dragged it back to the forefront again.

Just a few days ago, Fairy Tail had finally gotten a reliable lead on their missing master's location, and they'd been talking over possibilities and laying out plans ever since. Despite a few concerns, Gray was insistent that he go as well and since he didn't seem to have any ill effects from his time as an amnesiac, no one really had any grounds to say no.

And when Fairy Tail went traipsing off to Alvarez, Lyon would not be going with them. He had certainly grown much closer to these mages over the past few months and formed some strong friendships. He'd even been accepted as a sort of unofficial, honorary guild member. But in the end, his guild was still Lamia Scale and this was Fairy Tail business that he had no place in.

No, he would return to Lamia Scale and hope for the best. He'd been away from his guild for a long time and he missed it. He would miss Fairy Tail too, especially Gray, but it was time to go. Lyon hadn't left yet because the thought of leaving Gray was abhorrent to him, even though things were all okay again. Gray had probably been right when he'd said that they were all just as dependent on him now as he was on them. Lyon's life really had revolved mostly around Gray for the past months, and it would take some time to adjust to the fact that it didn't need to anymore. That was probably one of the other reasons he hadn't left already—he was having a hard time accepting that Gray no longer needed him the same way he had before, and it was difficult to figure out where to go from here.

But Gray would be leaving within days and Lyon would be going back to Lamia Scale and things would start settling into something resembling pre-void normalcy again. If Lyon still wanted to say the things that he'd been meaning to say to Gray, he was running out of time.

And there _were_ things he needed to say. Maybe Gray already knew them or at least had some idea, but Lyon wouldn't be satisfied until he'd finally said the words. Perhaps Lyon could have just continued to put it off, except that a conversation he'd had with Natsu a few months ago had resurfaced in his mind and wouldn't let him go. He had told Natsu that he'd always meant to tell Gray certain things, but that everything always kept getting ruined.

Something would always happen to Gray and Lyon would regret not saying the words bottled up in his heart, wishing that he hadn't waited too long. All the things left unsaid would always eat away at him, taunting him because he'd missed his chance again. And yet when Gray always somehow managed to come back, Lyon would inevitably put off the long-awaited conversation in his relief, because it wouldn't be an easy one and there would always be more time to have it later. Except that there wasn't always more time, and Gray's brush with death and the void had been all too real this time around. Lyon had really, truly thought that he was too late, and having an amnesic Gray was almost worse because even though he had been _right there_ , Lyon still wasn't able to tell him what he needed to.

Lyon had had enough. He couldn't put this off any longer, not after how much it had haunted him after Gray's last 'death'. It was time that he sat down and had a chat with his adoptive brother.

He paused outside the doors of Fairy Tail's guild hall and loitered there for a few minutes, steeling himself to go in. Just because he was determined to have this conversation didn't mean that it would be easy. He was stuck, because he was too desperate to walk away and too nervous to go inside.

"Why are you lurking out here?" Erza asked from behind him.

He jumped about a foot in the air and spun around. He'd been so lost in his thoughts that he hadn't even heard her approach.

She took in his expression and raised an eyebrow. "What's eating at you?"

He shook his head hurriedly. "Nothing, I'm, uh…" He trailed off at her disbelieving look and sighed. "I just need to talk to Gray."

"He's inside," she said. "You won't be able to talk to him very well from out here."

Lyon sighed again. "I know."

Erza studied him carefully, her sharp eyes efficiently decoding his body language and expression. "Ah," she said. "It's going to be one of those sappy heart-to-heart things that you guys suck at so much."

Lyon stared at her for a moment and barked out a surprised laugh. "Yeah, something like that."

"Look, whatever you want to say is obviously bothering you the longer you hold it in," Erza pointed out reasonably. "You'll feel better once you get it off your chest. I know you and Gray don't do so much of the sentimental stuff, but I'm sure he'll understand. I'm not saying it'll be all that easy to bare your heart or whatever, but you don't have to look like you're walking to your execution. I rather think Gray will be gentle with you." She sighed and smiled a little sadly. "He's been being rather gentle with us all lately, I think."

It was true that Gray had been a little uncharacteristically gentle and patient with everyone since he'd recovered his memories. He seemed to realize how hard everything had been on them and how difficult it would be for them to adjust now that things had changed. He was expecting some out of character behavior from them, so perhaps he wouldn't be all that surprised by Lyon's sudden desire for a 'sappy heart-to-heart thing'.

Everything Erza had said was true, but it didn't really make Lyon any less nervous or reluctant. Still, this was something he _had_ to do, and he couldn't very well hide out here all day.

"Yeah, you're right," he said with a sigh. "Thanks."

"No problem. Now, are you going to go inside or not? Because I've been meaning to go in but you've been blocking the door."

Lyon chuckled despite his nerves and pushed the doors open. "I'm going, I'm going."

"Hey, Lyon?" When he glanced back and arched a questioning eyebrow, Erza added, "Good luck."

He tried to smile. "Thank you."

She clapped him on the back reassuringly—which perhaps didn't have the intended effect since it felt like she might have broken some bones—and walked towards the other side of the hall after giving him one last encouraging smile. Lyon stared after her, awkwardly trying to rub at his bruised back. They really had some characters in this guild, but they'd grown on him. He would miss them.

Giving up on his back and tearing his gaze from Erza's retreating form, Lyon glanced around the guild hall and quickly spotted Gray. The younger mage was sitting with Natsu and Lucy, laughing and joking as he petted Happy distractedly. There were faint dark circles under his eyes and he occasionally hid a yawn, but aside from looking a little tired, things seemed fine. He was obviously having a good time and Lyon considered putting this off so that he didn't ruin it, but then Gray noticed him and waved.

"Hey, Lyon!" Gray called brightly. Lyon took a steadying breath and walked over with grim determination. "Flame brain was just saying…" Gray trailed off and paused, concern flickering in his eyes as he took in the other man's expression. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," Lyon muttered, stopping in front of him. "Gray, can I talk to you for a second?"

Gray looked immediately apprehensive, but nodded. "Of course."

He stood and deposited Happy in front of Natsu, who was frowning at Lyon curiously.

"Are you sure nothing's up?" Natsu asked.

Lyon shook his head. "I just need to tell him some things."

Natsu stared at him a moment longer, before understanding spread across his face. Perhaps he had made the connection to that conversation they had had so long ago. Or maybe not. Lyon was inclined to think that he hadn't since he wasn't really that bright, but it was hard to tell with him.

"That's good then," Natsu said, suddenly cheerful again. He gave Lyon a grin and an encouraging thumbs up. "Good luck."

Well, apparently he remembered the conversation after all. Lyon wasn't sure if he should be grateful or want to whack the other mage over the head for being so weirdly annoying. Natsu tended to have that effect on people.

Gray looked back and forth between Lyon and Natsu for a few moments, and then a strange mixture of comprehension and resignation settled over his features. He couldn't possibly know what exactly was going on here, but apparently he'd managed to at least guess the gist of it.

"Alright," he said. "Shall we?"

Lyon nodded and settled for giving Natsu some kind of awkward smile-and-shrug combo, and the two ice mages headed for the doors. Lyon paused outside the building and stared at Gray, trying to marshal his thoughts. He had planned out this entire conversation already, but now that the time had come, he had conveniently forgotten it all. Even worse, he seemed to have completely lost his nerve. He opened his mouth, but no words came out.

Gray eyed him with a resigned wariness. "Walk with me?" he suggested.

Lyon hesitated but then nodded. Maybe walking would help calm his nerves a little, or at least give him something else to do while he worked up the courage to speak. So he and Gray set off down the street, ambling aimlessly as Gray waited quietly for Lyon say his piece.

"I don't bite," Gray said finally, after they had walked down an entire street and turned the corner. He frowned at the ground. "You might as well spit it out."

"Yeah." Lyon let out a breath and resolutely forged onward. "It's just…" He sighed. "I guess there are some things I've kind of always meant to say, but I've never said them. It's kind of awkward, you know?"

Gray nodded his silent acknowledgment, still staring at the ground. He slipped his hands into his pockets and plodded onward stoically, waiting for Lyon to continue.

"It's probably going to sound kind of stupid, but…I've put it off for a long time," Lyon muttered. Maybe the younger mage had the right idea—Lyon found it easier to look at the ground than at Gray. "I feel like things are usually fine between us and we've done great without a bunch of sentimental bullshit. So, you know, it doesn't usually seem like a big deal, because why bring up stupid crap when everything is already going great?"

Lyon forced himself to stop rambling for a moment. He was definitely stalling, trying to avoid getting to the point. It was time to get his act together.

"But then things stop going great," he said, his lips tightening. "You always run off and manage to get yourself completely messed up. You'll do something like try to use…try to use iced shell…" He swallowed hard but rallied. "Or you'll disappear for seven years and I'll think you're dead, or I'll have to watch you _actually die_ so that it's only a miracle that you're alive again at all, or you'll–you'll get hit by a curse and I'll have to watch you suffer so _much_ and have terrible seizures and cough up blood and–"

He broke off and blinked back tears, sucking in a shuddering breath in a vain attempt to calm himself. When he spoke again, he tried and failed to keep the waver out of his voice.

"And I'll think that you're dead. But you somehow manage to come back again, but you're not–not the same, and it's terrible because you don't remember us and you're so unhappy and everything is a mess. And I thought–I really thought that I was going to lose you for good last time. I mean, I always do, every time, but last time was even more real, somehow. Because even when you came back, you didn't really–you didn't really come back. And God, when you were yourself for a few minutes and you were just saying _goodbye,_ and it was terrible and–and I couldn't do anything. I never can. I always want to, but I can't do anything and I just have to watch you _die_ and–"

Lyon stopped short when Gray reached out and grabbed his arm. He looked up, startled, to see Gray watching him with sad, pained eyes. The two of them paused right in the middle of the street, ignoring the irritation of passersby trying to get around them. Gray carefully wiped away the tears that Lyon was only half-aware he'd been shedding.

"Lyon," Gray said quietly, "it's okay. Breathe. Deep breaths."

Lyon tried, he really did. The mostly calm and detached introduction he'd planned out had devolved into an anguished, blubbering mess, and this wasn't the tone he had wanted to set for the conversation. He tried to pull himself together, to even out his too-rapid heaving breaths and put a stop to the tears, but it was easier said than done.

"I–I just–"

"Take a second," Gray murmured. "I'll still be here when you calm down."

Lyon nodded jerkily and started walking again, needing the motion and distraction to help himself settle back down. Gray followed his lead and walked by his side, and the two of them ghosted silently through the streets for a few minutes until Lyon could get a handle on his out of control emotions again. He couldn't let them derail this conversation.

"I missed you," he said finally, taking a deep breath and trying to keep his voice steady.

"I know," Gray replied softly.

"I missed you every time. Every time." Lyon let out a breath, and Gray lowered his head further as he stared at the ground with narrowed eyes. "And every time, I regretted not telling you certain things. Every time you came back again, I put it off and convinced myself that it could wait until later. But this time… This time I'm actually going to say it."

Some of his grief melted into resolute determination as he prepared to say his piece, but then he caught sight of Gray and paused. If Erza had thought that Lyon looked like he was going to his own execution earlier, it was Gray who had that look now. The younger mage's mouth was set in a grim line, and his expression was a strange mixture of reluctant apprehension and resignation.

"Gray, are you–?"

Gray looked up and tried to smile, although it came out melancholy and strained. "Go on," he said, forcing his grim expression into a more neutral one.

Lyon hesitated a moment longer, but decided to forge on. He was starting to think that maybe a good part of Gray's melancholy and resignation was just coming from the fact that he didn't like to see Lyon upset and knew that things were going to get worse. Or perhaps it was just because he was still as awkward with heart-to-hearts as Lyon was.

"You can be really annoying," Lyon said after a moment, glancing away again. "And sometimes we rub each other the wrong way and we always fight a lot. But…" He swallowed. "But it's like you said, isn't it? Back when you–when you found your memories for a few minutes. Despite all of that—or maybe because of all of that—you were always a good friend, and then a good brother, and I…I wanted to tell you that back then but I was too much of a mess to form the words and you were in a hurry because you were losing everything again and I–I didn't exactly say it. So yeah, you've always been like a brother to me and I've always loved you like one.

"Well, there was that hiccup after Ur…" He trailed off to collect himself again and Gray stayed quiet, still focused on the ground at his feet as he walked.

Lyon tried to figure out how to say what was on his mind, but his thoughts were all mixed up in a chaotic jumble. Gray seemed to sense it, and gave him time to pull himself together. They walked in silence for a couple minutes, until Lyon found a place to start and thought that he might be calm enough to get through this now. Mimicking Gray's posture, he shoved his hands in his pockets and stared blankly at the ground. Somehow it was easier if he wasn't looking directly at Gray while he talked.

"When you went running off to Isvan without telling us and we followed you…" Lyon sighed heavily, forcing himself to think back to those few terrifying, heartbreaking days when he and Natsu and Happy had gone chasing after Gray with barely a hope of finding him. "Well, we stopped by Brago because we thought you might go there. I know we told you that."

Once things had calmed down more, they'd all had a good laugh at how they'd managed to just miss each other as they went to the same places but out of order and at different times. They had all shared notes about their respective journeys and had been transparent about the places they had gone and the things they had done, but Gray had certainly glossed over some of the details and hadn't ever really explained his thought process, and Lyon had done much the same in some respects. Well, now he felt like coming clean about part of it.

"I thought that I'd mostly be kind of upset because of how Ur…how she died there. Bad memories and all that," he said in a low voice. "And yeah, it definitely stirred up some of those memories, but once I got there and started looking around, there was something else that bothered me even more. I just… I don't know. It's like I couldn't stop thinking about how after she died, I told you it was your fault and was really cruel and then just left you there, even though I knew that I was really the only person you had left.

"And I… Did I ever tell you that I was sorry?" Lyon frowned at the ground and hunched his shoulders. "I don't think I actually did. I'm sorry about everything I said and did back then, and I'm sorry that I left you when you needed me. I'm sorry I blamed you for something that wasn't your fault. And I'm sorry that I managed to hang on to all that hate and hurt for so long, and that I hurt you and your friends on Galuna and tried to resurrect Deliora and almost got you killed. And I–" His voice wavered. "I'm sorry that I couldn't do more all those times I lost you. I wanted to be able to help but I couldn't, and I wish that I could have done something.

"I guess… I guess I just want to make sure that you know I'm sorry for all the wrong I've done by you, and that I really don't blame you for anything that happened, and that I–I love you and you mean the world to me." Lyon let out a shuddering breath. "I needed to tell you that because I need to know that you know all of it. I want you to know that. And maybe it seems silly to bring it all up now, but I almost lost you for good last time, and if I lose you again then I want to be completely sure that you really understand everything you mean to me."

He fell silent and stared at the ground moodily, racking his brain to see if he could find anything else to say. He got the feeling that he hadn't been exactly eloquent here, and was a little worried that he hadn't managed to convey everything that he wanted to express. The words didn't seem to be enough and they certainly didn't reflect the true depth of what he was feeling, but he didn't know what else to say. He searched for the right words but came up empty.

"I don't know what you're so worried about," Gray said when the silence dragged on for several long seconds. Lyon glanced up in surprise. Gray's eyes were still trained on the ground, but then he finally looked over and met Lyon's gaze steadily, his eyes unreadable. "You're talking like I'm going to keel over any minute now. Relax. I'm hard to kill." He raised an eyebrow. "Like a cockroach."

The absurdity of the statement made Lyon want to laugh, but he frowned in bewilderment instead, because it sounded familiar. Something that distinctive should certainly stick in his memory. Where had he heard it before?

Lyon's eyes widened in sudden understanding and he gaped at Gray in disbelief. "That– Natsu told me that," he stammered, trying to figure out what was going on here. "Way back in the beginning after they'd first brought you back from the void."

That had, in fact, been the exact conversation that had prompted Lyon to get his act together and have this little chat with Gray today. But at the time, Gray had only been back from the void for a couple days, and still had zero memories and no interest in much of anything. He shouldn't know about that conversation, but Lyon was having a hard time believing that such a distinctive statement could be repeated now through a simple coincidence.

"He did," Gray agreed, eyeing Lyon with a mixture of melancholy and amusement.

"But you– How would you– What?"

Gray chuckled quietly, but it tapered off into a sigh. "You guys had a habit of forgetting that I was even there because I was so quiet back then. You'd forget about me or assume that I wasn't listening, but sometimes I was. It's true that I didn't really care about a whole lot back then so I wasn't always listening, but when I _was_ paying attention, my hearing worked just fine."

"You…heard everything Natsu and I said that time?" Lyon asked, stunned. Gray nodded. "All of it?"

Gray nodded again. "I believe I even asked Natsu about it afterwards, because I could tell how unhappy you were."

"When I walked into the guild today and said that I wanted to talk to you, you knew it was about this?"

"I had my suspicions."

Lyon was so distracted staring at Gray that he almost walked straight into an oncoming pedestrian. He hastily tried to apologize, but the aggrieved man just shot him a death glare and rushed off, obviously in a hurry. Gray snorted in amusement, dragging Lyon's attention back to the matter at hand.

"Why didn't you say anything?" Lyon grumbled. "You could have saved me a lot of trouble if you'd just said that you'd already overheard everything."

Gray looked away again. "Because you needed to say the words, didn't you? Would you have been satisfied if you came here to tell me this today and I just waved you off and said that I knew it all already?"

"No, I suppose not." Lyon grimaced faintly. The whole point of this endeavor had been to actually come out and say all the things he hadn't said over the years. If he had failed to say them now, he wouldn't be any better off than he had been before.

"You're right," Gray said with a sigh, "you haven't told me most of those things before. But you also didn't need to. Honestly, you might not have ever spelled things out word for word, but you've always made things clear in the way you've treated me. You don't have anything to feel bad about. I've always known these things, Lyon."

He paused and grimaced. "Well, I guess I couldn't really know them after I came back from the void, but as long as I've had my memories, I've known all that. I'm sorry that I forgot for a while."

"It wasn't your fault," Lyon said quickly.

He didn't like that Gray was apologizing for something he had no control over. Gray had seemed to revert mostly back to normal after recovering his memories, but sometimes he acted in ways that betrayed the fact that he still felt bad about everything he had put them all through. And while that was understandable, no one wanted him to feel guilty for something that had never been his fault to begin with.

"No," Gray agreed, "it wasn't." He glanced over at Lyon and smiled sadly. "But it still hurt anyway, didn't it?"

Lyon swallowed thickly, unable to deny that. Of course it had hurt. It had hurt to see Gray reduced to an empty shell, had hurt to know that he wasn't the same and couldn't remember anything, and had certainly hurt that he had been so wary of Lyon.

"Well yes, but–"

"I know that it wasn't my fault," Gray interrupted quietly. "But I also never meant to hurt you, and I'm sorry that I did. I never— _never_ —would have looked at you like that if I had my memories. It's not my fault, but I'm sorry anyway because I could see exactly how much it hurt you and I never wanted that."

Lyon's hands curled into helpless fists. He could tell that Gray still felt bad, still felt guilty despite everything, even though he was trying not to be obvious about it. And if Gray didn't want Lyon to hurt, Lyon certainly didn't want Gray to hurt either.

"It wasn't always that bad," Lyon said. "You started warming up to me after a while. You gave me a second chance and you were willing to try to rebuild our relationship, or something like it, even though you didn't remember me and I made you uncomfortable. And that meant a lot, that you were willing to do that despite everything. Really, there's nothing to be sorry for. I've done worse to you."

He grimaced. "You lost all your memories and your entire sense of self. You didn't have a choice in the matter. So what was my excuse after Ur died? I still had my memories and understood myself. And maybe I couldn't quite forget how much you had meant to me, but I could still hate you and blame you for something that had never been your fault. You don't need to feel bad, Gray. It doesn't even compare to what I did to you."

Gray didn't respond immediately. He sidestepped a cracked portion of the pavement and turned a corner, glancing up for just a moment to peer at his pale face reflected in a shop window before staring down at his feet again.

"I don't suppose you've figured out what I was doing yet, back when I returned from my impromptu road trip and spent a good few minutes sizing you up before I pieced together my memory," he said finally, his voice even. It wasn't quite a question.

Lyon stared at him even though the younger mage kept his gaze fixed resolutely on the ground. The sudden change of topic confused him. He certainly knew what Gray was talking about, but he didn't understand what it had to do with anything. He could still remember his fear and confusion and worry when Gray had burst into the guild hall, made a beeline straight for him, and spent a good while staring at him like he was trying to solve a puzzle. It hadn't helped that there had been a new wariness in Gray's eyes, something Lyon hadn't seen since those first few weeks after his brother's return from the void. He had been able to tell that something had changed, that Gray was looking at him differently again, and it had frightened him because he hadn't thought that he could handle it if Gray went back to looking at him like a 'screamer'.

He had later asked what that had been about, but Gray had brushed it off as unimportant and changed the subject. Gray hadn't had many problems talking about his time as an amnesiac since the return of his memory, but he didn't much like talking about how his mind had worked or what he had been thinking and feeling. Lyon got the feeling that although part of it was because Gray was still coming to terms with everything that had happened, part of it might be because he didn't want them to know what he had been thinking for fear that they wouldn't like it. Lyon couldn't say anything for sure, but he might be about to find out some of it.

"No," he managed, staring at Gray's bowed head apprehensively.

Gray remained silent for a moment longer before sighing. "After I puzzled out my parents, I went to Brago. While I was there, I eventually found a memory of…Ur's death. Super vivid and everything. Anyway, I remembered you yelling and blaming me and leaving, and it kind of threw me for a loop because it was so different from the side of you I'd gotten used to. When I visited Ur's cabin, I looked for something to help me reconcile who I'd seen in that memory with who I'd known since the void. I didn't find it, exactly, but unlike some of the other people I was trying to piece together, you were still alive.

"So when I went back to Fairy Tail, I looked for you first. I mean, everything since the void pointed to the fact that you had cared about me and you'd been nice enough, but you had been so different in that memory that I had to wonder if I was missing something. Like, were you really all that nice, or were you maybe not really as close to Gray—to me—as I'd thought you were?"

Lyon winced. That hurt, but maybe he deserved it.

"And then I realized that it didn't matter."

Lyon's head jerked up in surprise and he stared at Gray uncomprehendingly. After a moment, Gray sighed and finally met his eyes again.

"What do you mean?" Lyon asked.

"I mean…" Gray frowned a little and went back to looking at the ground, kicking absently at a small rock and watching it clatter away down the street. "The things you'd said and done in that memory didn't really matter and looking for a way to reconcile you with that boy didn't matter, because Gray had–" He broke off with a grimace. " _I_ had forgiven you. You'd forgiven me for what I'd done, I'd forgiven you for what you'd done, and I didn't need to worry about all those things because in the end, you were still my brother."

Lyon gaped at him. "I– You–?"

"And if you were my brother then you were my family, weren't you?" Gray continued as if Lyon hadn't tried to say anything. "So if you were family and you were grouped with Ur, then _she_ must have been family too. I hadn't even really considered that because I didn't really understand what family meant, to be honest. I mean, I knew the word and the dictionary definition, but the real meaning behind it? Not so much. I'd maybe started understanding a little when I puzzled out my parents, but not enough. My parents made sense as family because they were biologically family, and I'd left it at that. But if you and Ur were family too, and my parents were as well, then Fairy Tail had to be family too, didn't they? Because surely that was what all three of those groups had in common.

"That was what really got me started on the train of thought that led me to making the connection between who I was then and who I was before, which is how I got my memories back. And honestly, that experience of trying to figure out how to meld two 'versions' of you helped even more than that, because that was what I was trying to do with myself, wasn't it? I was trying to figure out how Gray and I could possibly be the same person when we were so different, and I think that being able to accept that you had changed but stayed the same person is what really helped me accept that about myself too.

"So it seems kind of silly when you keep saying that you couldn't help me. Okay, so you couldn't do anything when I was hit by the curse. So what? It wasn't like anyone else could do anything either. Even if you can somehow ignore the fact that you spent months here trying to take care of me and teach me magic and fix my memory despite how hard I made it for you, it's hard to ignore the fact that you played a huge role in that final revelation I needed to make."

Lyon let out a shaky breath. This was the most he'd ever heard Gray talk about his thought process from when he hadn't had his memories. It was a little sad because he could practically feel how confused and frustrated Gray must have been, but at the same time it was something of a relief to finally get that insight. And although Lyon had necessarily _done_ anything to help at that point, it was good to know that something about him had helped trigger Gray's understanding of himself. Maybe it helped just a little bit to know that.

"I…I'm sorry," Lyon whispered finally. "But I'm glad that it helped some."

Gray glanced over to frown at him. "You still aren't getting it, are you?"

"Getting what?" Lyon asked in confusion.

"Look, I heard everything you said to Natsu back then, and everything you've said today. For some reason you're still stuck on this not being able to help me thing. God, you should hear yourself, Lyon. 'Oh, and I just always have to watch you die and I can never do anything about it and all I want to do is help, but I can't.'" Gray shook his head. "I can't believe you can possibly overlook everything you've done. You might not have been able to save me from Acnologia or the dragonlings or Memento Mori, but you've saved me from something much more important."

Lyon tried to process that. Yeah, he still felt a little bad about how abysmally he'd failed Gray up to this point, although he could admit that he had certainly done some good this time around during Gray's recovery process. But that couldn't be what Gray was talking about here, and Lyon didn't understand what he might have saved Gray from that was worse than all the things he'd 'died' from before.

"I don't understand," he said slowly.

"Lyon, after Ur died and you left me, I always waited for you," Gray said quietly.

Lyon's heart twisted painfully. He didn't want to hear that. He hadn't waited for Gray, hadn't gone looking for Gray, hadn't really forgiven Gray. Sure, he'd wondered what had happened to Gray from time to time and he'd never been able to totally forget what the younger mage had meant to him, but he had mostly hated Gray whenever he'd thought about him at all.

"I–"

"It wasn't like I was expecting you to seek me out so that we could have a big happy family reunion," Gray interrupted, narrowing his eyes slightly. "And I don't think I was fully aware that I was waiting for you at all, but I was. I always wanted to know what had happened to you, wanted to know that you were okay even after everything that had happened. I guess I wanted to see you again to make sure of that, even though I was kind of scared of that possibility at the same time because I knew you'd still hate me. But I felt bad about what I'd done and I still loved you despite everything, and I wanted to know that you were alright."

"I'm sorry," Lyon breathed.

What could he say to that? All he could think about was what he had done on Galuna to completely wreck their reunion. Gray shouldn't have waited on him, because Lyon had never been planning on coming back for him and had made sure to make his life hell when they had finally met again.

"Galuna hurt," Gray said, shrugging. He hunched his shoulders a little more and stared downwards blankly. "But at the same time, I got to see you again. It hurt to see what you'd been doing and I hated fighting you, but it's not like I had expected you to be happy to see me."

Lyon's heart broke a little at that, knowing that Gray had wanted to see him so badly but had known that he would be unwanted and unloved if that ever happened.

"I'm so sorry," the older mage repeated.

Gray glanced over, and his eyes were covered with the faint sheen of unshed tears. "But you came back for me," he said quietly, his voice wavering slightly.

Lyon stared at him uncomprehendingly, and then felt even worse. "No, I didn't," he whispered, shame and regret coloring his voice. "I didn't know you'd come there and I didn't want you there. It was a coincidence, and it almost got you killed."

"Not Galuna," Gray corrected, shaking his head. "Afterwards. I mean, we went to go fight Oración Seis and you were just _there_ and you were being an annoying little brat like when we were kids and you were acting like you didn't hate me anymore, and it wasn't a coincidence. You knew Fairy Tail was sending people. You could have stayed away to avoid me in case I was one of the ones they sent, but you came anyway."

No, that time hadn't been a coincidence. Lyon had volunteered for that mission because when he heard that Fairy Tail would be one of the guilds to send help, he had hoped that Gray might be one of the mages coming. After Galuna he'd had time to come to terms with some things and think things through, and he'd started feeling bad about how he'd treated Gray, both as kids and on the damn island. He hadn't been entirely sure what he was expecting by trying to see Gray again, but he hadn't been able to help himself.

"I wasn't really expecting a warm welcome after Galuna," Lyon muttered, biting his lip.

"But you came anyway," Gray said in a low voice, looking away again. "And I didn't know what to expect or how I should act around you, but we worked it out. And when you went over that cliff with Racer and his bomb, I thought that I'd lost you just as soon as I'd finally gotten a chance to maybe get you back again. I searched for you in all that rubble and couldn't find you, and I thought you were dead. And I hadn't been able to do a thing about it."

Lyon's eyes widened. He hadn't really thought about it that way before. He'd known he wasn't dead and Gray had seemed collected and unsurprised when he'd showed up again, so he hadn't even realized that maybe there had been more hurt there. Lyon had had to watch Gray 'die' too many times, and it hadn't really occurred to him that maybe Gray had felt just as helpless and grief-stricken about him.

He opened his mouth, but Gray just shook his head sharply as if trying to get himself back on track, and continued speaking.

"My friends didn't fully realize it at the time, and they still don't completely understand exactly how messed up I was after everything with my parents and Ur," Gray said, clearing his throat. "Maybe you have a better idea, but still… It was really bad. I blamed myself—and I would have still done it even if you hadn't said anything—and I felt alone and unhappy and I…I really hated myself for a while there."

Lyon winced. "Gray–"

"I mean, it started getting a little better over time," Gray continued conversationally, ignoring Lyon. "Fairy Tail really helped me a lot, even if I didn't make it easy on them. Things weren't as bad as they were in the beginning, but in all honesty, I never really got over it. I was happy sometimes, I didn't brood over things constantly, but there were times when I was really unhappy and I'd hate myself for getting her killed and almost getting you killed and generally wrecking everything."

"You didn't–" Lyon broke off when the younger mage finally looked up at him again. Despite the evenness of Gray's tone, his eyes were swimming with tears. "Gray…"

"But even after everything I did, after all the mistakes I made, you eventually came back for me," Gray whispered, his voice breaking as his tears finally spilled over. He swiped at them hurriedly, as if he didn't really want Lyon to see them. "You never really said that you forgave me, but I could tell. I could tell. And I thought that–I thought that if you, who maybe had the most reason to hate me out of anyone, could forgive me, then maybe I could forgive myself too."

Gray stopped right in the middle of the street, his hands trembling violently as he futilely scrubbed at his tears. Lyon stopped as well and had to forcibly swallow back some tears of his own. He felt like he needed to do something, needed to find some way to give his brother comfort, but he didn't know what to do. He almost wrapped Gray in a hug right there even though they certainly weren't the hugging type, but the younger mage sucked in a breath and kept talking.

"And I really, really needed that," Gray breathed, his gaze sliding off to the side. "It's what helped me finally start letting go of some things, I think. You don't understand exactly how self-destructive I was, Lyon. So it sounds so wrong when you act like you've never been able to do anything, because maybe it was always other things and other people that saved me from death and curses and all that, but you… You and Fairy Tail saved me from myself, and I'm sure that someone's going to say I'm an idiot for thinking this way, but to me, that's so much more important than any of the rest of it. I'd take the dragonlings or the curse any day over going back to the way I was then, because if I can't live a life where I can accept myself, I don't see the point in living at all. Hell, I barely saw the point back then, but you and Fairy Tail showed me how to find it again.

"You aren't the only one who didn't say all the things you should have. I always–I always wanted to say thank you, because you came back and it meant the world to me. It really did."

Lyon let out a shaky breath. Maybe Natsu had been right after all, back in Brago when he'd said that even if they'd made mistakes when it came to Gray, they'd eventually come back and tried to set things right. And yeah, that didn't erase what they'd done, but they'd fought to make things up to Gray, and that had to count for something. Just like, he realized, Gray had fought to make things up to them in his own way when he'd thought that he'd wronged them too. Both Lyon and Gray had made mistakes, but like Gray had said, they'd forgiven each other and were forgiving themselves, and maybe that was what mattered.

"You _are_ stupid," Lyon murmured, eyeing Gray sadly. "Your life is _always_ worth living."

"Yeah." Gray's voice was subdued. "I know that now. There was a point where I wasn't entirely sure, but it's been a long time since then. A very long time."

Lyon didn't know what to say to that, but he needed to say something. Something meaningful and comforting that might help Gray feel better about everything. He wasn't sure how good a job he could do, but he'd try.

"I came back because I felt like I owed you something, that maybe I should try making up for how I treated you, even if I wasn't quite sure if we could rebuild our relationship or even if I really wanted to," he said finally. "But I stayed because you were worth staying for. And you know, I've never regretted that choice. You shouldn't have needed me in order to start forgiving yourself because I'd like to think that you can see all the same things in yourself that I see when I look at you, but if I helped then I'm glad of it."

He hesitated a moment longer and then reached out to Gray almost instinctively, but the younger mage stepped back. Lyon bit his lip and dropped his hand, but Gray just swiped a sleeve across his face to remove any lingering traces of tears and then gave the older mage an impish grin. Lyon was dumbfounded. After how emotional this whole conversation had been, Gray was now smirking like nothing had even happened.

"See, that's what I've been telling you—you helped," Gray said cheerfully. "And now I want revenge for all those hours of molding lessons you put me through with all your 'helping', so it seems like now is as good a time as any to show you how to make proper cocoa like I said I would. You know, since we're already here…"

He gestured behind Lyon. Turning, Lyon realized that they had stopped right in front of Gray's apartment. He shook his head. Maybe he shouldn't be surprised—they had always sucked at emotional stuff, so it was hardly a shock that Gray had decided to lighten the atmosphere—but it _was_ a little funny that they'd just happened to stop in front of his apartment without noticing. Unless…

"You led us here on purpose, didn't you?" Lyon accused.

Gray laughed. "Maybe. I figured it would be a rough conversation, and hot chocolate makes everything better."

Lyon rolled his eyes and shook his head again. "You can be awfully sneaky when you want to be."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Gray said, his eyes widening in mock innocence before he ruined the effect by snickering. Slipping past Lyon, he headed for his apartment. "I hope you'll be a better student than I was," he added ruefully.

Lyon winced at the reminder of how terribly those first magic lessons had gone. But that hadn't really been Gray's fault, and Lyon would humor his little brother for now if he had to. He followed the younger man into the apartment, resolving to set aside his raging emotions for the moment if that was what Gray wanted.

"Well, we had to start from scratch with you," he said. "Luckily I'm already a superb maker of cocoa, so this should be a breeze."

"A 'superb maker of cocoa'?" Gray asked with a laugh, flipping on the light and heading for the kitchen. "Since when did you talk like you swallowed a dictionary? Besides, that's hardly an accurate description, you poor, deluded fool. Even Natsu agreed that my hot chocolate was far superior to yours, even if he thought the comparison to ditch water was a little harsh."

"Ditch water?" Lyon asked, aghast. "You compared my hot chocolate to _ditch water_?"

Okay, so maybe his cocoa had never been all that great, but ditch water? That was just insulting.

Gray chuckled. "I didn't have any memories. Therefore, it wasn't my fault and I bear no responsibility for the things I may or may not have said."

"That isn't a proper excuse. Besides, look me in the eye and tell me that you don't still think the same thing now."

Gray had been pulling ingredients out of the pantry, but now paused to give Lyon a deadpan look. "Your hot chocolate tastes like ditch water," he said flatly. "Dirty ditch water."

"You're so mean," Lyon muttered, swallowing a smile.

Gray just laughed and went back to finding everything he needed. And because Lyon really did make terrible hot chocolate, he actually paid attention when Gray started his demonstration. The little lesson stayed upbeat because they were both tired of the heavy emotional stuff, and if it was still weighing on Gray then he didn't show it. The silence was mostly filled with teasing and joking, and time flew.

"Wow, this is actually...adequate," Lyon said as he sipped at the finished product.

"By which you mean that it's way better than yours but you don't want to admit it."

"You wish," he grumbled, even though Gray was right.

Gray laughed. "Why don't we go sit out on the couch?"

Lyon shrugged and followed Gray back to the living room, settling down on the couch next to him. It was more comfortable than the kitchen, anyway.

"Hey, Lyon?" Gray frowned down at his mug as he swirled its contents around absently.

"What?" Lyon asked, wondering why he suddenly sounded so serious again.

Gray stayed silent for a moment longer. "It's been nice having you around. Thank you for staying so long."

"Of course. I was always going to stay until we figured something out. You would have done the same for me."

Gray glanced up, sudden mischief sparking in his eyes. "Well…I would have had to think about it first, but I might've shown up eventually."

Lyon raised an eyebrow. "By which you mean that you would have come for me as soon as you heard something had happened, stayed until the very end, and fought for me until you found a way to fix things. But you don't want to admit it."

"Yeah," Gray said with a tired chuckle that tapered off into a yawn. "That sounds about right."

The conversation turned back to lighter topics after that—a little teasing and some discussion of what Lyon would do when he went back to Lamia Scale and what they thought might be going on with Fairy Tail's missing master. The teasing started dying down after a time though, if only because Gray was becoming more and more subdued. Maybe he hadn't gotten enough sleep last night, because he was looking exhausted now that the earlier excitement had calmed down. Come to think of it, he had gained a new tendency to start looking rather tired every few days. It probably wasn't a big deal, but at this point Lyon just kept up a quiet string of chatter and waited for Gray to fall asleep.

The younger mage was certainly fighting it, but his yawns were becoming more frequent, his blinking was becoming slower, and his mug wobbled dangerously in his hand.

"You could just take a nap if you're that tired, you know," Lyon remarked finally.

"I'm not tired," Gray mumbled around another yawn. He scowled at his body's betrayal.

Lyon just chuckled quietly and came up with all the most boring, pointless things to talk about in as soothing a voice as possible, until Gray finally couldn't resist temptation anymore. Lyon smirked as Gray's eyes finally closed and stayed closed, his head lolling back. He must have been really tired after all. Lyon carefully unwrapped Gray's slack fingers from around the handle of the mug and set the mostly empty container on the coffee table.

Leaning back, he studied Gray's sleeping face for a moment as he decided what he should do now. Then Gray mumbled something in his sleep that drifted into a sigh and shifted slightly, somehow ending up leaning on Lyon's shoulder. Well, that was that. It looked like Lyon was staying here, unless he wanted to try manhandling Gray to the bedroom and hope he didn't wake the younger mage up. But he didn't want to risk waking Gray because he really looked like he could use the sleep, so Lyon sighed quietly and stayed put.

Noticing a blanket draped across the other arm of the couch, he reached out for it. Maybe Gray could handle the cold and didn't need it, but it couldn't hurt anything, especially since it was downright chilly in here. It was a little too far for him to be able to reach easily, so he had to lean over a little. The movement dislodged Gray, whose limp body ended up sliding over as well, and Lyon hurriedly wrapped an arm around him to keep him in place.

Lyon finally managed to snare the troublesome blanket and carefully slid back to a fully upright position, holding Gray steady as he did so. Gray sighed softly in his sleep and shifted slightly to accommodate the new position, curling against Lyon as his head rested against the older mage's chest and the fingers of one hand unconsciously tangled in Lyon's shirt, tightening reflexively for a moment before relaxing again. Lyon blinked down at him, debating whether or not to try moving him to a different position, but decided that he seemed perfectly content there. With a sigh, he managed to shake the blanket out with one hand and spread it over them.

Then he settled back to wait. He told himself it was just because he didn't want to wake up Gray, but the truth was that he didn't mind this so much. Maybe it would start getting uncomfortable eventually, but for now it was nice to just be able to hold Gray in a way that neither of them would stand for if they were both awake. Because Lyon would be leaving soon, and he wanted to hang on to Gray for as long as he could until then.

Gray looked awfully peaceful when he was asleep. That melancholy and tiredness and strain seemed to just melt away. Not that they were always easy to see since Gray had been trying to hide them, but… Although Gray had seemed to be in a generally good mood since he'd recovered his memory, Lyon sometimes thought he saw hints of something a little darker, a little sadder, in the younger mage's eyes. Maybe Lyon was imagining it. Or maybe Gray was hiding things.

Lyon absently ran a hand through Gray's hair, pondering the possibility that something might still be bothering him. Gray let out a contented sigh at the touch and snuggled closer, a faint almost-smile playing on his lips. Lyon felt the corners of his lips twitch upwards as well. He didn't know if there was anything wrong, but he'd worry about that later. For now he was content to relax and drift off to sleep with his little brother in his arms.


	2. Gray

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, it's still long :) And there are some Interesting Stylistic Choices. Sorry XD I think you'll be able to figure out what the italicized portions are pretty quickly, but if not, it's made pretty explicit by the end. Poor Gray. I'm so mean to him :(

* * *

_'The screams and roars echo in his ears, and he can still see the blood spattered everywhere and the bodies lying around and the demon coming closer, closer, closer. And then he wakes up flailing about in a panic. He realizes that things aren't much better now that he's awake, because sometimes he wakes up into a nightmare instead of the other way around. The nightmares he can't wake up from are always the worst.'_

_._

_'If you can't wake up then it's not really a nightmare, is it? Sometimes you just have to learn how to cope with reality.'_

* * *

He's in the void, but even though he's nothing, he can still hear the echoes of screams, feel the dragonlings tear through him, see the blood spilling down. And then there's one final shot to his head, and everything goes dark. For a moment he can feel only the emptiness of the void swirling around him, eating away at what little might be left of him. And then it all starts over again. It repeats over and over and over and–

Gray woke with a gasp, flailing about in panic. It was still dark, but he could just barely make out the details of his bedroom in the shadows. He wasn't in the void. He had his memories. Everything was fine. But that nightmare just kept coming back over and over again. It looked like it was never going to let him go.

_(('Of course not. You belong to the void.'))_

And reality came crashing right back down, because this wasn't a nightmare he could just wake up from.

Gray grimaced and shook his head, as if he could shake the curse right out. But it didn't work like that, and it would talk for as long as it wanted and he didn't have a say in the matter. He hadn't been lying when he'd told Natsu that the curse had weakened considerably over time, but he hadn't been entirely truthful either.

The curse was weaker, but it was hardly gone. Usually he barely even registered its presence, but some days it would start fighting again. It might not be able to drag him back to the void or take his memories, but it could still make his life hell.

He didn't want to tell the others about that, so he tried to hold himself together and fight his way through the bad days on his own. His friends wanted to believe that everything had magically gone back to normal, and he didn't want to disillusion them. Right now his plan was to just wait the curse out, because it _was_ getting weaker. Most days it was fine, but some days it was a real struggle.

_(('It would be easier if you just gave in. Come back to the void and all the pain will go away.'))_

"Shut up," he growled. Then he winced, realizing that he might have just made things worse. The curse wasn't exactly alive, but it would react if he responded to it. Interacting with it just made it more persistent.

_(('You still feel the pull. You know that you don't belong here anymore. You can feel it.'))_

Gray ground his teeth together and slid out of bed. He felt trapped, and there was nothing he could do about it. He couldn't escape from something that was stuck inside his head, and he couldn't escape from himself either.

Because the curse was right, and Gray hated it for it. It was part of him, had access to all the feelings he tried to suppress and every last memory he'd ever made, and it would use them against him.

As much as it might have pried apart his thoughts and twisted them into something darker than he'd ever meant them to be, it _was_ still right in its own way. In the moment Gray had gotten his memories back he had felt whole and everything had felt _right_ , and he'd managed to overlook the inconsistencies and niggling doubts. But once the initial euphoria had faded away, he had begun to gradually realize that things hadn't just gone back to normal. As much as he tried to hide it from the others, he wasn't quite the same.

It was getting hard to breathe in here, and Gray needed out. He stalked into the bathroom to splash cold water on his face, as if that could shock the curse into submission. All it really did was make him wet and cold, and give him the unwelcome opportunity to glimpse his face in the mirror. He stared at his reflection, wondering how it could be so familiar and so strange at the same time.

_(('Maybe it's because you know that you still don't quite exist the way you should.'))_

"Be _quiet_!" Gray spun away from the mirror with a scowl. He couldn't deal with this tonight.

He pulled on some clothes, frantic to get out of the suddenly too-small apartment. It looked like he'd be spending the night pacing the streets again. Glancing at the clock, he grimaced as he realized that it wasn't even four in the morning yet. It would be a long night.

On his way out the door, he grabbed his coat and pulled it on, needing the reassuring weight of the object in the front pocket and the familiar sensation of fabric brushing against his skin that he'd grown accustomed to in the days where he rarely stripped. He jammed his hands into its pockets and prowled the city's sleeping streets.

"Everything is perfectly fine," he said into the stillness, absently pressing his fingers against the book's cover to make sure it was still there. If anyone saw him talking to himself, they'd think he was crazy. But no one else was up at this hour and he needed something to drown out the curse's whisperings. "I'm not dead, not stuck in the void, not an amnesiac. I've got my friends and my memories and I'm myself again, and everything is perfectly fine."

_(('Are you? Yourself? Do you even have a self anymore? You barely exist at all.'))_

"It was always me. All of it."

_(('That's too bad, then. You didn't particularly like who you were then, did you? It would be better if you came back to the void. Then you don't have to be yourself anymore.'))_

Gray hunched his shoulders and picked up his pace a little and continued rambling on, but he wasn't really paying attention and it wasn't helping and he didn't know what else to do.

"There's no reason to be upset. It seems kind of ungrateful to be unhappy after everyone worked so hard to sort things out. It should be over. I should be able to let this go. It was always me and there's no reason to be so confused about who I am now. People change. I changed. That's normal."

_(('What about you is normal, exactly? This isn't over. It won't be over until you come back where you belong.'))_

"I belong _here_ ," Gray insisted, clenching his hands into fists and feeling his nails bite into his palms. "I don't need the void when my friends are here."

_(('Where, exactly, are your friends? Where are your friends now?'))_

"They're asleep. Like normal human beings."

_(('And you're awake, because you're not a normal human being. Maybe because you're not a human being at all.'))_

"That's stupid."

_(('Is it?'))_

"Of course it is." Gray's voice wavered slightly in the still night air.

_(('You're a bad liar.'))_

"Get out of my head!" he cried in frustration, squeezing his eyes shut and shaking his head.

_(('You know the void will be part of you forever.'))_

Gray bit back his instinctive response. He'd gotten carried away and started conversing with the curse again. He tried to tune out the clamor in his head, but it was impossible. The best he could manage was to wander the streets in a daze, distracted by all the noise. Talking didn't help, walking faster didn't help, and Gray eventually gave up and sat down.

* * *

_'He's unhappy today and he's looking for a distraction. He figures that the annoying new girl is a good place to start, so he goes looking for her, intending to start a fight. He finds her at the riverbank, and his voice dies in his throat when he sees that she's crying. It occurs to him that she has demons in her past too. He doesn't know her very well and they aren't exactly friends, but he doesn't want to think that she's hurting like he is. He sits down next to her awkwardly, unsure of what to do. In the end he just sits there because he doesn't have much he can give her, but the one thing he can do is make sure that Erza doesn't have to cry alone.'_

_._

_'Looking out for her is good, but why wouldn't you let anyone look out for you? Why did you spend half your life alone on a riverbank of your own?'_

* * *

Apparently he'd somehow managed to wander to the river again. Perhaps it shouldn't really be a surprise since this seemed to be where everyone ended up sooner or later, be it for crying or fighting or comforting. Gray didn't think that he was really here for any of those things. He was here because he was tired of feeling like he was running away, from the curse and from himself.

He wanted to think that he wasn't really giving up either, but all the same, he sat down at the water's edge and drew his knees to his chest. For a few minutes he stared out at the dark water, but then he buried his face in his knees and clamped his hands over his ears.

He didn't know how long he sat there curled into that uncomfortable position, rocking back and forth, but it was long enough that his muscles started aching and cramping. The curse droned on and on and on, occasionally falling silent for a time but always coming back.

He was so lost in his own mind that he didn't even hear anyone come up behind him.

"–ray? Gray?"

A hand shook his shoulder and he yelped in surprise, trying to spin around and ending up sprawled gracelessly on the ground instead. He blinked up at Natsu uncomprehendingly.

"What in the world are you doing up so early?" he asked, his mind not quite caught up with his mouth yet.

"Early?" Natsu asked. "It's well past the time you would have normally come to the guild."

"What?" Gray's eyes widened as he realized that night had brightened into daylight at some point. "It's already that late? Damn."

"Already that late?" Lyon repeated. Gray sat up quickly, noticing the older mage for the first time. "Just how long have you been out here?"

Gray felt his expression close off, but then realized that it would be a terrible mistake to get defensive. Forcing a smile, he waved a hand dismissively. "I don't know," he said airily. "I lost track of time."

_(('It seems like the only thing left of you is your lies. No wonder you hardly feel human—you're made up of a collection of lies that you've crafted to hide the fact that there's nothing left of you.'))_

He grimaced, but then forcibly smoothed out his expression and picked himself up off the ground, wincing and stumbling a little as his cramping muscles protested. Natsu and Lyon exchanged looks.

"It's well past eleven," Natsu said.

"Already?" Gray asked, rattled, not quite believing it could be that late. "Please tell me that everyone didn't get worried and set up another manhunt."

"No… We didn't think it was a good idea to worry everyone unless something was actually wrong," Lyon said. "We thought we'd look for you first, so we told them everything was probably fine."

"And you both decided to look for me? Together?"

Natsu and Lyon glanced at each other again, before returning their concerned gazes to Gray.

"Yeah," Natsu said. "We thought that maybe something actually _was_ wrong."

"You've been kind of out of sorts lately," Lyon added. "Although it's not that obvious. It was mostly a hunch, really."

Gray stared at them. "Nothing's wrong. I'm perfectly fine. Let's go back to the guild."

"You don't look fine," Lyon said doubtfully.

"Sure I do. You worry too much."

"You don't have to keep hiding things, Gray," Natsu said quietly.

_(('Hm, maybe you do. Aren't you hiding things because you know that they won't like who you've become?'))_

"Would you shut the fuck up already?" Gray snarled, finally losing patience. Natsu's eyes widened and he took a half-step back, and Lyon looked no less startled. Gray winced and deflated, dropping his gaze to the ground. "Sorry," he muttered. "Not you."

There was a pause.

"Not me?" Natsu asked finally. He swallowed. "The curse is talking to you again? I thought you said it wasn't giving you problems anymore."

Awesome. Now he'd totally given himself away.

"It's not so bad," Gray said, backtracking hurriedly. "Usually I barely even know it's there. It's just a little more active than usual today, but nothing I can't handle."

_(('Liar.'))_

"Gray," Natsu started. "You don't–"

"Seriously, you worry too much," Gray interrupted, keeping his voice light. "It's really not that bad. Anyway, we should go back to the guild before anyone starts to really worry."

"We don't have to go back yet, if you aren't ready to face them," Lyon said. "It's okay to take a few minutes to pull yourself together. They'll wait."

In truth, Gray wasn't sure he was ready to go to the guild yet. He knew that he was a mess right now, but he also didn't want them to see that he was falling apart so he had to be okay.

"Nah," he said, forcing a smile. "I'm ready to go back."

_(('No, you aren't. You don't want to go back to the guild because you know that your friends don't really want you around anymore.'))_

"What?" Gray blinked at empty space in confusion, then snorted derisively. "That's the stupidest thing you've said so far."

The curse was a master at sniffing out his insecurities, but it didn't always do such a great job. Gray might have had doubts about his friends wanting him around a long, long time ago, but he hadn't felt something that silly in years. The curse would have a hard time stoking that particular insecurity up again.

_(('Hmm… Then maybe it's more that you know they would be better off without you.'))_

"I…" That was a little harder to deny, if only because that insecurity had been harder to shake in the past.

_(('You know that you always hurt everyone you care about. And in the end, you know that it would be better for your friends if you weren't around.'))_

He sucked in a breath. "That was a long time ago. I haven't felt like that in a long time."

"Gray?"

_(('Oh really? Why else would you ask your friends to give up and let you go unless you knew that they'd be better off without you? You spent months feeling like a fraud, feeling like you didn't deserve everything they were giving you. You could see how unhappy you made them. If it was you the whole time, then you felt that way. And you can still feel it now, can't you?'))_

"That's not–that's not the same," Gray mumbled, his fingers curling into loose fists.

"Hey, Gray?"

_(('Isn't it?'))_

He wasn't sure how to respond to that.

" _Gray!_ "

His head jerked up, and he blinked at Natsu blankly. The dragon slayer looked like he might be about to pounce on Gray and shake some sense into him, and both he and Lyon were wearing horrified expressions.

"Sorry," Gray muttered, shaking his head and running a hand through his hair. "I don't know why it's so loud today. Usually I'm better at ignoring it."

The fact that he had gotten completely distracted from the conversation at hand was a testament to exactly how strong the curse was today. He'd gotten pretty good at hiding it, and if it hadn't already been wearing him down for hours, then he never would have snapped and starting talking to it in front of his friends.

Natsu eyed him sadly. "It's not so bad, huh?"

Gray let out a breath and turned away. Dropping to the ground, he sat cross-legged on the grass and stared out at the river moodily.

"I want to rip my brain out of my head," he admitted. He clearly wasn't fooling anyone, and he'd honestly rather not go to the guild and risk having a total meltdown in front of everyone.

After a moment's pause, grass crunched quietly as Natsu and Lyon moved to join him, one settling on each side of him. Gray braced himself for the slew of questions he knew was coming.

"What does it say to you?" Lyon asked.

Like hell he'd tell them that.

"Nothing important."

"Gray…"

"Seriously."

"You said once that it called you to the void," Natsu said. "But it sounds like–"

"Look, I wasn't lying," Gray interrupted. "It can harass me all it wants, but it can't actually force me to do anything. It's not accomplishing anything here."

_(('Oh really? You're miserable, aren't you? Eventually you'll give up just to get away from it all.'))_

"Look, if you'd just tell us–" Lyon tried.

"I don't want to talk about it. Seriously, all I have to do is spend a couple hours waiting it out and then it'll die down again. I'm fine."

"If you're so fine, then why are you here?" Natsu asked.

Gray shrugged and trailed a hand through the river's current, watching his pale fingers swirl the water about. "I don't know. I was wandering around and eventually I just ended up here. It seems like we all always wind up here."

"Not just the river. Why are you at _this_ part of the river?"

"Huh?" Gray frowned over at Natsu in confusion. "What do you mean?"

The dragon slayer's lips tightened and he nodded out at the water. Gray leaned forward and caught a glimpse of a shadowy object at the bottom of the river.

"Oh," he said, finally recognizing the spot. "This is where we dropped my gravestone in, isn't it?"

" _What?_ " Lyon demanded.

"It is," Natsu agreed neutrally.

"I didn't particularly mean to come here," Gray responded with a shrug, withdrawing his hand from the water. "It's a coincidence."

"Is it?"

"I think so."

_(('Or maybe you came because you still feel the draw to death, to oblivion.'))_

Gray didn't think so. He'd been too distracted by the curse to be paying much attention to where he was going. He hadn't come here intentionally, although he supposed it was possible to make an argument about subconscious impulses.

* * *

_'He doesn't know what's going on, but Natsu is out of sorts and quiet today. When he asks what's on Natsu's mind, the dragon slayer says "nothing", an automatic response that makes it clear something is wrong. He doesn't know what that might be, but he teases Natsu a bit and drags the dragon slayer out on an impromptu job. He keeps sneaking glances to make sure that Natsu is still doing alright, but the dragon slayer seems to be in much better spirits._

_Still, when he drops Natsu off later that night he hesitates, unsure if there's anything else he can do. But Natsu seems happy enough now, so he just pulls Happy aside and asks the Exceed to keep an eye on the dragon slayer. Happy nods solemnly and thanks him. He doesn't know why. Natsu is his friend, and this is what friends do. He doesn't need thanks for that._

_When he goes home, he worries a little more. Sure, Natsu seemed fine, but what if the distraction wasn't enough? Maybe he should have done something more._

_The next day, he looks for Natsu in the guild. The dragon slayer is laughing and generally making a nuisance of himself. He looks at Natsu's eyes and everything seems normal. Happy meets his gaze, and gives him a small smile and a half-shrug. He relaxes. Maybe he finally managed to do something right after all.'_

_._

_'Did your "nothings" mean that nothing was wrong or that you just didn't want to tell the others? Does hiding it really help?'_

* * *

"Gray, why won't you just tell us what's wrong?" Natsu asked. "What is it that the curse is saying? What's been bothering you so much lately?"

Gray sighed, unable to come up with anything to say that wouldn't make things a hundred times worse. "Nothing."

"Do you remember that night when you woke up and we walked the city?" Natsu asked after studying him silently for several long seconds.

Gray nodded. That was the night they'd invited his landlady to dinner and he'd shut down on them. The curse had been aggressive that day, and had woken him up with dreams of the void again. And then he'd accidentally woken Natsu up, and the two of them had ended up wandering the streets for a while. Gray had a bad feeling that he knew where this was going.

"No," Lyon grumbled, clearly tired of being left out of the conversation. "I don't."

Natsu ignored him. "You remember how I talked about that time when you'd asked me what was on my mind and I said 'nothing', but you knew something was wrong anyway and spent all day trying to make me feel better?"

Gray looked away. "Yeah. Natsu, you don't have to feel bad about all the times I threw you off with my stupid red herrings. I've had a lot of practice hiding things. And you did help. I'd end up distracting myself too, and just being around you would eventually help me start feeling better anyway. You might not have known you were helping, but you were."

"That's good," Natsu said after a long moment. "But it's not going to be enough this time. No more hiding things, Gray. I want to know what your 'nothing' is. Tell us."

"Please," Lyon added quietly.

Gray remained silent for a long time, staring down at the shadowy outline of his gravestone at the bottom of the river. Then he let his breath out in a shuddering sigh, uncrossing his legs so that he could draw his knees to his chest and wrap his arms around them. Dropping his chin onto his knees, he stared down at the water, steadfastly not looking at his friends.

"Yes, okay, fine. Usually the curse isn't that bad, usually I'm barely even aware of it, but it's always there. It's always there, and sometimes it gets loud again. Today it was especially loud and made me dream again, so I got up early and walked around the city for a while and eventually ended up here."

"This is why you've been so tired lately?" Lyon suggested hesitantly.

Gray winced. "Yeah. Sorry I fell asleep on you the other day."

"It's fine. I could tell you needed it."

"Well, it helped, I suppose. I seem to get less nightmares when I'm around you all."

Something about being around his friends seemed to help ward off the curse a little. Maybe it was just that he didn't pay it as much attention when he was with them, or maybe because he felt loved it was harder for the curse to convince him otherwise. As awkward as waking up on Lyon had been, Gray had slept better than he had in weeks. And when he'd half woken at one point, feeling Lyon's arm around him and hearing the older mage's steady heartbeat in his ear had been comforting enough to lull him back into a dreamless sleep.

"Now tell us the rest," Natsu pressed.

Gray didn't want to. He really, really didn't.

_(('Because you don't want them to know how messed up you are. Because they'll look at you differently again and start wondering what they're doing with a freak like you who doesn't belong with them anymore.'))_

Gray sighed. "No, that's not why," he murmured resignedly. "They aren't going to like what they hear, and it will only make things hurt more."

"Gray?" Lyon asked cautiously.

Gray narrowed his eyes and kept his gaze fixed on the water. "My life is full of holes," he said, hugging his knees closer to his chest. "I lost seven years with Tenrou, there was that hiccup after the Games with the dragonlings, I lost another year and a half in the void, and even afterwards I spent months not being quite myself. Tenrou and the void might be the worst, honestly, because that time I missed is just _gone_. Like, there's nothing to mark its passing, no sign that I even existed then at all. Hell, I didn't even _age_. At least after the void I was still here. I can still feel how that time passed."

"No aging, huh? Maybe you discovered the secret to eternal life after all." Natsu's words were clearly meant to be joking, but they fell flat.

"I don't want eternal life," Gray whispered. "I just want _my_ life. I want one single life that isn't broken up and interrupted. One single life where I can make my own choices and it doesn't feel like someone else is living for me half the time."

"Gray–"

"I still feel like two different people sometimes," he said abruptly, before he lost his nerve.

_(('Funny. Seems like you can only be two people or none at all. Either you're broken into pieces or you don't even exist. Doesn't the void seem like a much better option? At least if you're nothing, you can't be broken.'))_

"Stop," he whispered. "For once, just stop."

_(('It's all or nothing. You come to the void and give it all up, or this goes on forever.'))_

"Gray, it's okay," Lyon murmured. "We're here."

He reached out to touch the younger mage's arm to snap him out of it, and Gray had to fight the instinctive urge to flinch back. It only made him feel worse. Sometimes when he was closest to his post-void mindset or the curse was particularly strong, he still felt echoes of the things he had felt back then, including his uneasiness around Lyon and the others he had once termed 'screamers'. It usually only lasted a second or two before fading away, but he hated it. He was so very, very careful not to let them see it, because he didn't want to see all of that old hurt resurfacing in their eyes again.

Gray hummed noncommittally but couldn't meet Lyon's eyes. He couldn't help the instinctive reactions, but they made him feel ashamed all the same.

"Talk to us instead of the curse," Natsu said. "I'm sure that focusing on it will only make it worse."

Gray didn't want to tell them about everything that was still wrong with him, but he was worn down and right on the edge of snapping. He was tired of keeping secrets. He was so tired of not being able to talk to anyone besides the curse. Before he could stop himself, the words began pouring out of his mouth in a tangled, rambling mess.

"I was the same person the whole time. I can remember the things I did and said and thought and felt. And they were _me_ , but they were also different because _I_ was different, and sometimes it's hard to connect to them. I think it's because of all those gaps in my life. Because people change and that's normal, but they change over time. I didn't. I basically woke up one day and was a different person. There was no gradual transition. I was me and then I wasn't, and now I'm somewhere in between."

"Gray, you–" Lyon tried.

"I switch back and forth sometimes. Sometimes I feel more like I used to before the void, but sometimes I feel more like I did after. Usually I'm somewhere in between, but I'm still trying to figure out how to blend my two selves together.

"And all the shifting and trying out new personality blends is really tiring because I don't know exactly who I am right now, which makes it hard to figure out how I should think or act. It's especially bad with relationships, I think. Like, our friendships were different before the void than after. They used to be more tough love, but then they became more open and dependent. And if I feel like more of my old self then it can be kind of uncomfortable when we get more touchy-feely because we never used to do that, but sometimes that's what I want now.

"I know you guys have just as hard a time trying to figure out how you're supposed to treat me now too. It would be easier if I still had a steady personality, so I try to stay consistent, I really do. And I try to be my old self, because that's who you want and because I liked myself better then too. But I don't want to completely ignore who I became either, because that's what he— _I_ —thought was going to happen." Gray let out a shaky breath and started rocking back and forth, his eyes glazing over. "Because he—I—thought that there was maybe only room for one of us, so when he went looking for me in Isvan, he thought it was going to be kind of like dying, you know? Like maybe he'd just disappear or something because if only one of us could be here then it should be me, because I belonged here and he didn't."

Gray broke off and dropped his head into his hands. "Because _I_ thought that. God, it's such a mess. I know it was me, I can feel the things he felt and understand what went through his mind, but sometimes it's easier to think about him as sort of a different person who's kind of me and kind of not. And it helps my sanity, a little. When I start comparing who I was before the void and after the void and now, it gets confusing and sometimes it's easier if I make the distinction between all of those different selves, even though I know that they're all really just me."

He forced himself to stop talking so that he could take a few deep breaths and try to calm down. His hands were trembling and he was feeling jittery and anxious again. Thinking about this stuff too closely always did that to him, and the curse wasn't helping.

"Gray," Natsu breathed.

Startled out of his reverie, Gray stared at the dragon slayer uncomprehendingly, taking in his horrified expression. He had almost forgotten Natsu was there. Glancing over at Lyon, he saw that the older man looked just as upset.

He'd gone and screwed things up real good this time.

"I wasn't supposed to tell you that," he mumbled, wrapping his arms around himself and dropping his gaze to the ground. "It's not always that bad. If I don't think about it too much, then I can gloss over the inconsistencies and focus on the broader picture. It's just that if I look too closely, I can see all the uneven edges where the different sides of me don't quite match up anymore. It'll get better once I've had more time to work things out. It's only bothering me so much today because the curse is loud."

For a moment, neither Natsu nor Lyon could find the words to speak.

"Shit," Natsu said finally, stunned. "I thought it might take you a little time to settle down and work things out, but I didn't think it was this bad. You seemed to adjust so quickly and go back to normal so fast that I suspected that maybe you were hiding some things, but …"

"We want to help you, Gray," Lyon said. "Why didn't you just _tell_ us?"

Gray shrugged. "After everything that's happened… It would be easier if things had just gone back to normal. So I tried to make them go back to normal. Besides, I wanted to fix this by myself."

"Because you got so dependent on us and you want to start becoming more independent again?" Natsu offered uncertainly

Gray let out a breath. "Something like that."

Lyon stirred and Gray glanced over before he could stop himself. The older mage's gaze had sharpened, and he was studying Gray with narrowed, knowing eyes.

"Because you thought it would be easier for us and we would be happier if you magically went back to your old self?" he suggested, the words only half a question. "Because you feel like you've put us through a lot of heartache these past months and you don't want to do that anymore?"

Gray's gaze slid away and he hugged his knees tighter as he stared out at the river. "Something like that."

Lyon let out his breath in a heavy sigh and Natsu shifted about unhappily, but Gray kept his eyes fixed steadfastly on the water. He hadn't meant for them to know any of this. Their fight should have ended the moment he got his memories back. They'd already done so much, and he didn't want them to have to worry about him anymore.

_(('You always seem to hurt the people you love.'))_

"Gray, we want to be there for you when something's wrong," Lyon said gently. "And if this is going back to how hard these past months have been on us, you have to know that none of it was your fault."

"I know that," Gray agreed.

_(('But you hurt them anyway.'))_

"Yes."

_(('And in the end it's still your fault, because it was you the whole time, wasn't it?'))_

"If I wanted your opinion, I'd ask for it," he said sourly.

_(('They're your opinions, you know. They come from the things you've felt and thought.'))_

He let out a breath. "I know."

_(('Isn't that why you hate it so much? Because you know these are the things you don't want to admit to yourself. Because you know that, in the end, you're the one doing this to yourself.'))_

"Well look at that, you've managed to make a valid point for once. Congratulations. Now be quiet."

"Gray?" Natsu asked.

Gray's head jerked up as he was startled out of his conversation with the curse. Then he sighed and rubbed at his face with his hands.

"I'm fine," he said, trying not to let the strain color his voice. "Look, I know that it was really hard for you guys, and I know that it wasn't my fault. It's not like I could do anything about it when I had no memories and didn't even understand how to feel properly. There was nothing I could have done."

_(('That's what bothers you the most, isn't it? That in the beginning, you didn't even care about your friends.'))_

Gray bit his lip, wishing that there weren't tears gathering in the corners of his eyes.

_(('When you came back from the void, you were empty. Your friends cared about you, they loved you, but you felt nothing for them. And it bothers you because you thought that you'd always care about them, that nothing could ever change that. But something did. And if you could lose such a fundamental part of yourself, what might you lose next? You're scared that someday you might forget what they mean to you again, might lose the ability to care again, might lose something else entirely. It hurts, doesn't it? It hurts knowing that they loved you and you didn't deserve it because you didn't love them. That you ripped their hearts out because of it.'))_

"Yes," he whispered, his voice wavering as he buried his face in his hands to hide the tears. "That's what hurts the most."

_(('You really were a heartless monster, weren't you?'))_

"I didn't have a choice. What was I supposed to do when you made it so that I couldn't even understand what it meant to care?"

_(('Oh? And what's really changed? You still don't care about them the way you should, do you?'))_

"I do!" Gray cried. It was the last straw. He curled over on himself and cried. "I do care, I do. I care so much."

_(('But you didn't.'))_

"I'm sorry!" he wailed. "I'm so sorry."

"Gray!"

Gray raised his head to stare at Natsu heartbrokenly, the dragon slayer's form blurry through the tears. Natsu's expression was a strange mix of horror and sorrow.

"It's okay," he said, his voice trembling slightly. "We know you care. We've always known that."

Gray dissolved into tears again. "But I didn't," he whispered brokenly. "When I came back from the void, I didn't care. I couldn't. I was incapable of caring because the void took away everything that made me human.

"And that–that's the part that's hardest to accept, the part that makes it the hardest for me to really believe I was that person." He let his breath out in shuddering sob. "Because you all meant so much to me and I always cared so much, but then suddenly I didn't. It's not my fault, but it still hurts and it hurt you and I'm sorry. It bothers me more than the amnesia, more than the goddamn curse hijacking my brain, more than anything else. How could I not care? I don't understand how I couldn't care."

Gray scrubbed at his face with trembling fingers and focused his anguished gaze on Lyon. The older mage looked just upset as Natsu, unshed tears glimmering in his eyes, and Gray knew he shouldn't say this, knew he'd been trying to hide this for months, but the words spilled out before he could stop them.

"And I care now, I swear I do, but sometimes it's different. When I feel the closest to the void, when the curse is the strongest, sometimes even just at random times, I'll feel like I did then." His tears turned Lyon into an indistinct blur of color. "Sometimes, for just a second, I'll look at you and feel that same wariness that I did after the void. And it's not _fair_ , because I do care and I shouldn't feel that way ever. I care, I really do, but I feel it anyway and I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."

Gray pressed his forehead to his folded knees and wrapped his arms around his head as he cried, because he was too ashamed to look at his friends and he didn't want to see how much damage he had just caused.

* * *

_'He's so tired of crying, but it's the anniversary today and it looks like he still has tears left to shed, even after all these years. He can't face the guild like this, so he wanders around the city and eventually ends up in the park. He doesn't know how long he's been sitting here, but he's past the point of caring if strangers see him now. Something touches his shoulder and he jumps in surprise, twisting about to see Lyon standing next to him, watching him with sad eyes. He opens his mouth to make any kind of excuse, but he has no words left, so he just bows his head as if that can hide the telltale tearstains. Lyon sighs and sits down, wrapping him in a tight hug._

_He's not sure what exactly to make of this. He thinks that maybe it would be easier if Lyon still blamed him, still hated him, but things have changed, it seems. So instead, he fists his hands in Lyon's shirt and cries. Lyon will be hurting too and he should do something about it, but right now he's falling to pieces. Lyon says things in a quiet voice: that it's not his fault, that it's going to be okay, that he needs to let go of the past. And maybe he's already started that process by now, but hearing the words helps, just a little. Mostly it helps that Lyon has somehow managed to forgive him. If Lyon, who perhaps has the most reason to hate him out of anyone, has been able to move past this and forgive him, then maybe it's time that he starts really figuring out how to forgive himself.'_

_._

_'Isn't the whole point of forgiving yourself that you do it yourself? Not that other people can't help, but…should you really have to wait on someone else? Stand up and do it yourself.'_

* * *

There was a long pause, punctuated only by Gray's muffled sobs and ragged breaths. Then Lyon wrapped his arms around Gray, hesitated a moment as if unsure if his actions would be poorly received in the light of this newest revelation, and then pulled the younger mage into a tight hug. Gray felt that unwanted urge to pull away, but it evaporated quickly and he collapsed against Lyon instead, hiding his face in his brother's chest as he cried.

Lyon's grip tightened, and being here made Gray feel almost safe and warm and loved. But it made him feel bad too, because he'd still felt that instant of discomfort that Lyon didn't deserve. And Lyon would be upset about this too and Gray should say something to fix it, but he was crying too hard.

"It's okay, Gray," Lyon breathed, his voice cracking. "It's okay. It's not your fault."

_(('Except that it is.'))_

"I'm sorry," Gray sobbed. "I'm so sorry."

"You don't have anything to be sorry for." Lyon was obviously fighting to keep his voice steady, and it made Gray feel even worse. "It's not like we really expected everything to go back to normal right away. We know that you care. If you didn't before, then it was because you _couldn't_. But you certainly care now, and we know that. I know that. It's okay."

"Besides," Natsu added, clearing his throat, "things changed for the better. We could tell that you'd started caring about us eventually. You didn't have your memories, hadn't known us for more than a few months, but you started caring about us anyway."

That was true. The first couple weeks after the void had been the roughest. Gray had come back empty and hollow and numb. He hadn't understood emotions or what it meant to love someone, and he hadn't had any reason to care about anything. But that had started changing eventually. He had gotten to know his friends all over again from scratch, and had grown to love them in his own way. It hadn't been the same and he wasn't sure if he could really call it love when his understanding of the phenomenon had still been so skewed, but he _had_ cared.

_(('Well, it's only fair, isn't it? You hurt them by not caring but it didn't even bother you then, so you have to pay for it now. You hurt them, so now you can hurt yourself over it. Fair is fair.'))_

Gray's hands tightened instinctively, his fingers clutching Lyon's shirt as he bowed his head even further. "I don't think it works like that," he mumbled, his voice muffled by the fabric.

_(('Doesn't it? What is it that you're doing now, then?'))_

One of Lyon's arms stayed firmly wrapped around Gray, while the other hand moved to run through his hair soothingly. "Sure it does," he murmured, not realizing that Gray hadn't been addressing them. "I told you the other day, didn't I? It meant a lot when you gave me another chance and tried to rebuild our relationship, even though I still made you uncomfortable. This wariness of–of me that you're talking about, it started back when you were still an amnesiac, right?"

"Yes," Gray choked out. "It never really went away. I mean it–it got better, but whenever I felt closest to the void, it would come back sometimes. I'm so sorry."

"You hid it."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because I… Because I saw how unhappy it made you."

"Because you cared."

"I… Yes. Eventually I cared."

Lyon stayed silent for a moment and then sighed. "You did a good job," he said. "Those first few weeks were really hard and I could still see some of that wariness in your eyes when you looked at me for a while, but once you really started warming up to me, I didn't see it anymore. And I haven't seen it since you recovered your memories either.

"Gray… Does this not tell you anything? You were so messed up after the void, but after those first few weeks, you really _tried_. You weren't always very demonstrative about it, but we could tell that things were changing. You started out with nothing, but you learned to care about us anyway, even though you really didn't have to. You went after Natsu and brought him his scarf, you went after Erza when she ran off to the river, you tried to be patient with us when we tried too hard to make you remember. You hid the presence of the curse because you didn't want us to worry, the notebook because you didn't want us to get our hopes up, your wariness of me because you knew it would hurt me to see it.

"And you've been hiding things again, because you don't want us to worry. Gray, look, you obviously cared back then, maybe more than you realize. And you obviously care now too. We all know it. And yes, it hurts to hear that you can still be uncomfortable around me, but it hurts more to see you blaming yourself for something that isn't your fault."

"We know this hasn't been easy on you either," Natsu added quietly. "And if you couldn't really care about us the same way back in the beginning…We understand that. We understand."

_(('Naïve fools. They understand even less than you do.'))_

"Understand?" Gray repeated blankly. He curled closer to Lyon and laughed harshly into the older mage's chest. "You don't understand, not really. You can't."

There was a long pause.

"Maybe we don't understand it all, but we want to," Lyon said finally. "We want to understand you and what you're going through. Why don't you help us understand?"

"Can't," Gray mumbled. "It's not that simple."

"Try," Natsu urged, his voice taking on a pleading edge. "You keep hiding things to protect us, but all we really want is to know what's going on so that we can help you. Tell us what's been happening."

"I don't want to."

"Gray, please. We understand–"

Gray pushed against Lyon's chest abruptly, breaking out of the embrace and scooting back a couple paces. Ignoring Lyon's surprised grunt, he stared at his friends with feverish eyes as he buckled under the strain.

"What, exactly, do you understand?" he demanded. "Do you understand what it feels like to have something invade your mind and rip away everything you know and love? Do you understand what it feels like to not exist and yet still be able to feel yourself—or rather, someone who used to be you—die over and over again for an eternity? Do you understand what it feels like to suddenly be thrown into a world you didn't think could possibly exist, and be expected to turn into someone you don't know?

"Tell me," he said, his voice cracking, "do you understand what it feels like to see everyone around you hurting and know that it's your fault? What it's like when you barely feel human at all? What it's like when you don't even have a name, because you don't exist and the person 'your' name belonged to is dead? What it's like to think that you're living in someone else's body, taking over someone else's life, even if that person was you all along?"

Natsu and Lyon were looking more and more horrified by the second, but now that Gray had started, he couldn't seem to make himself stop.

"Do you understand what it feels like when someone is constantly hijacking your mind to show you things that belonged to them but never belonged to you? What it feels like to have a curse lurking in your mind that takes away everything as soon as you remember it, that takes your darkest thoughts and fears and twists them into something unrecognizable that it can use to drive you fucking insane? What it feels like to gradually learn to love the people around you, but know that you'll never be enough for them because they need someone else? To know that you don't deserve that love because you aren't the person they think you are?

"Do you understand what it feels like to have a lifetime of memories crammed into your head all at once and then torn away chunk by chunk until you're nearly as empty as you started? What it feels like to ask your friends to give up on you because you just can't stand to see them hurting themselves over you anymore? What it feels like to be crying and not know if your tears belong to you or someone else entirely?

"God," he breathed, deflating and curling into himself, "do you understand what it feels like to wake up and think it's all over, but realize that it's never, never going to end? That there's still something in your mind that will use your own thoughts against you to hound you into going back to a place that you both hate and love? Do you understand what it feels like to know that everything should be perfectly fine—you've got your memories, you've got your friends, everything should be over—but still not be able to let it go? I should be fine. Everything was fixed. I should be–I should be–"

He buried his face in his hands, the tears leaking through his fingers. "Do you understand what it's like when you can't talk to anyone but the curse that's causing all these problems in the first place? Because you can't tell anyone what's happening, because they've already been hurting for a long time and they deserve to be happy now. Because you know that you were the same person and that you belong here, but sometimes you can't quite feel it anymore. And you hate it, because you've got every reason to be okay, but somehow you still fail at even that simple little thing. Because you came back, but there are still parts of you that are broken, parts that don't quite match up, parts that still belong to the void, and you can't accept that about yourself."

Gray looked up, his heart breaking at the sight of the silent tears streaking his friends' faces. "Do you understand?" he asked brokenly. "Because _I_ don't understand half of it, and I lived it. Do you understand _me_? Because I'm not the same. I try to be, but I'm not. I never just went back to normal. Do you know who I am? Because I don't, not anymore."

He hated seeing the pain and grief written all over his friends' faces, and hated himself for putting it there. He had never wanted them to know this. He didn't want to see the dawning realization that he wasn't really okay, that things weren't magically fixed. Gray just wanted them to be happy, and he knew that hearing this would not accomplish that.

_(('Well, you really screwed that up, didn't you? Good job managing to hurt them again.'))_

"You don't have to sound so happy about it," Gray whispered, closing his eyes and bowing his head. "I'm sorry," he breathed, to his friends this time. "I didn't want you to know that."

This time it was Natsu who cautiously inched forward to pull him into a hug. Gray let out a shuddering breath and leaned against him, shifting so that he ended up with his ear pressed to the dragon slayer's chest. Maybe Natsu had found comfort in the sound of breathing—or why else had he kept falling asleep with his ear pressed to Gray's door?—but for Gray it was heartbeats. He had noticed it when he'd fallen asleep on Lyon the other day, that just knowing that he was there was effective for pushing away the curse. The rhythmic thump of Natsu's heart muffled the curse's ugly words in one ear, and his voice drowned it out in the other.

"I _do_ think that I know you, actually," Natsu said quietly. "Maybe you've changed some, and that's fine. Maybe there are still some things you need to work out, and that's fine too. I might not understand every detail of what you've gone through or how you've changed, but I still understand all the important parts of you. You'll always just be Gray to me. Some things might change, but deep down, you're still the same person that I've always cared about.

"Look, you're right that maybe we don't understand, but even just telling us this is at least helping us understand a little bit more, and we _want_ to understand. We want to know what you're going through, because no matter what might have changed, we care about you anyway."

Gray curled into Natsu further, clutching him like a lifeline. He needed something to ground him, something to help him push aside the curse. Maybe this was it. His chest heaved and ached with silent sobs, but he just hid his face and stayed as quiet as possible, because he'd rather be able to hear his friends' voices.

"We should have–we should have suspected that you were still having some trouble with this," Lyon said, swallowing thickly. "I guess it's kind of silly to assume that things would have just gone back to normal without any consequences. You don't have to feel bad that you're still having trouble adjusting. And with all–with all those things you were–you were feeling, that you _are_ feeling… It makes sense that you might need a little time to work through some things.

"But I think it _will_ get better. You're so strong, Gray—you can do this, no matter how hard it is. But you don't have to do it alone, you know? We'll always–always be here for you. It's okay to lean on us when you're having a hard time. And when you finally figure out who you want to be from here, we'll stand by you then too. We've already accepted you for who you are, we'll accept you for who you become, and now you just need to accept yourself."

Gray was finally running out of tears, and their absence left him feeling lethargic and heavy. Twisting his head slightly but leaving it resting against Natsu, he studied Lyon with half-lidded eyes. The older mage was sitting close enough to touch, his hands clenched into helpless fists. His eyes betrayed his desperation, his worry and grief, even if the tear tracks down his cheeks hadn't given it away.

"You don't have to cry," Gray sighed. "It's going to be okay. I'm okay. Don't cry."

Lyon choked out a laugh and rubbed at his face. "You're crying," he said. "Of course I'm going to cry."

"Not anymore," Gray murmured. "I'm not crying anymore."

He tilted his head up to glance at Natsu's face, and was relieved to see that the dragon slayer's tears had already dried up. Natsu still looked pained, maybe his eyes were a little damp, but he wasn't crying. That was good.

Satisfied, Gray slid his head back to a more comfortable position and let his eyes drift shut. Soon he'd have to get up and face the curse and the guild, but for now he just needed a moment to rest and regroup. Just one little moment of peace before he had to face up to reality again.

"You know, for all you worry about us, we worry about you too," Natsu said. "We're here for you too. If you need this sometimes, you can always come to us."

Gray sighed quietly. "I know."

"Do you?" Lyon asked. "Because you were just going on about how you didn't feel like you could tell us what was happening."

"I know. It's both."

"It's like the spare key," Natsu said. "Like how I know I can go over to your apartment any time I need you because you told me I could, because you left the key there. We've got spare keys too, when you need us."

Gray looked up at Natsu with a frown, wondering why he was blathering about keys. Then he choked back a laugh.

"Did you just make a metaphor about keys?" he asked in disbelief.

Natsu flushed and scowled. "Shut up."

"Wow, I was taking it literally because you usually say such simpleminded things. Metaphorical keys." Gray chuckled and then broke off abruptly, blinking in surprise. This was the first time he'd felt like laughing since the curse had started its assault hours ago.

And perhaps that was the crux of the matter, because as much as he felt like he shouldn't burden his friends with his problems, he felt better when he was with them. He wasn't sure if he'd take Natsu up on his offer of the metaphorical key, but maybe, just maybe, he would try leaning on his friends a little more. Because the truth was that he needed them, and he wasn't sure if he'd be strong enough to do this on his own.

He knew that the next time the curse got strong he would feel just as reluctant to approach his friends with the truth, but while they were already here… He might as well make the most of this time.

Gray drew in a breath, held it for a moment, and then let it out slowly. Pushing himself away from Natsu, he sat cross-legged on the grass between his friends. He pulled the notebook out of his coat pocket and flipped it open absentmindedly.

Beside him, Natsu drew in a sharp breath. "Why do you still have that?" the dragon slayer demanded. Gray glanced over and raised an eyebrow, wondering why Natsu suddenly looked so afraid. "You said the curse wasn't taking your memories anymore. Gray, what else have you been hiding?"

Gray stared at him blankly before really registering what he was saying.

"Relax," he said. "The curse isn't taking my memories. I use this for something else now."

Natsu's knee-jerk panic faded a little, but he regarded Gray with new suspicion. "For what?"

Gray sighed and returned his gaze to the notebook in question, his eyes flitting across the pages as he turned them slowly. He skimmed over all those jumbled pieces of memory and the extra comments that his amnesic self had left underneath in an attempt to figure them out, to figure _Gray_ out. He had looked over the contents of this notebook so many times that he practically knew the words by heart now.

"Now I use it to help me try to figure out how I fit together," he said. He reached the end of the first section of the book, and there was a blank page marking the shift. Turning it over, the start of the new section stared back up at him.

"When I have a hard time figuring out how my pre- and post-void selves fit together, I sometimes try to write my thoughts out," he explained. "What changed, what's still the same, how my thought process and feelings worked. I try to reconcile those sides of myself and meld them together to see who I'm becoming. Or when I'm upset, I write down my thoughts and then try to sort them out since they get kind of jumbled up sometimes."

He continued flipping through the notebook slowly, his lips quirking into a sad half-smile as he glanced over the torrent of anguish and confusion spilled out on each page. Mostly the whole thing was a collection of questions. How could he not have cared? How could he have done the things he'd done and felt the ways he'd felt? What kind of relationships did he really want to have with his friends now—the new or the old or something in between? Who was he now? Why were things still so hard even though everything should be better?

There were some frenzied attempts to answer those questions, to match up the pieces of the before and after so that he could make a now, but they hadn't been very successful. Sometimes his normally neat handwriting would devolve into messy scrawl as he raced to put his thoughts onto paper. And because words never seemed to be able to really capture the magnitude of the mess inside his head, there were frequent scratched-out paragraphs where he'd grown frustrated and scribbled over everything.

"Does it help?" Lyon asked.

Gray smiled wanly. "Not really."

He flipped to the next page and paused. The entire page had originally been covered in his hasty scrawl, but it had been obliterated by angry black pen marks so thick that the original writing was no longer visible. The gouges were so deep that the paper had ripped in a few places, and he knew that the indentations of the strokes would be visible on many of the later pages as well.

"Damn." Natsu let out a low whistle. "What happened there?"

"I got frustrated," Gray said. "I ruined my favorite pen."

"What were you frustrated with?" Lyon asked, eyeing him shrewdly.

Gray ran his fingers over the mangled page, feeling the sharp creases and grooves underneath his fingertips. He'd been frustrated over a lot of things: how he had treated his friends when he didn't remember them, how he had been stupid enough not to have realized that he could have taken his memories back at any time, how he couldn't seem to let this whole thing go even though he had every reason to be grateful and happy.

"Myself," he said finally. "I was frustrated with myself."

Ignoring the look Lyon and Natsu exchanged, Gray turned the page and left that particular memory behind. "It's never really helped, because this is too complicated for the words I try to use," he said, flipping through the last few pages with writing on them. He stared down at the next blank page and thumbed through the last few remaining sheets. "I guess it was kind of hypocritical of me to say that you didn't know how to let go. I've never been any good at it either.

"I wasn't very good at letting go of my past for a while there—it took a long time to work through it. I wasn't any good at letting go of some of the thoughts and feelings I should've gotten rid of a long time ago, which is only giving the curse more material to work with. And even now, I just can't seem to let go, which is why I'm in this mess even though things should be okay."

He sighed and tapped his finger against the empty page. "Maybe I've been letting go of the things I should be holding on to, and holding on to the things I should be letting go of. I let go of myself and asked you to do the same, and although it was a justified decision, it was the wrong one. And I've been so busy holding on to the things that happened since the void that maybe I've lost sight of what I should really be hanging on to instead."

He'd been so busy trying to figure himself out on his own, armed only with a notebook and a pen, that perhaps he'd forgotten that he would only be able to discover who he'd become if he really lived. Would he ever really be able to discover himself on paper? This was probably something he'd have to figure out over time, based on the decisions and choices he made now.

"Maybe I should let it go," he murmured. He turned back and started methodically ripping out all those pages he had been writing over these past couple weeks.

"What are you doing?" Natsu squawked in surprise.

Gray shrugged and continued on his quiet rampage. "I don't think I need this anymore." He tore out the last of the latest section, the pages piled neatly on the ground beside him, and then paused to glance over the last memory his amnesic self had written down. "Paper memories, huh?" he mused, smiling ruefully as he recalled how he had used to think about this notebook when he'd had no real memories to work with. "Silly. Memories aren't made of paper. But I suppose that I didn't know any better at the time."

He moved on to tearing out the pages of old memories, not allowing himself to linger over them. The first half of this notebook had been devoted to trying to figure out who he had been before the void—his amnesic self's attempts to make sense of the person he was supposed to be. The second half had been used for trying to figure out his amnesic self and how his before and after fit together. Fat lot of good it had done him.

Gray finished his chore and stared at the ravaged notebook, his fingers absently riffling through the dozen or so blank pages that still remained. These last pages, he decided, would be his new beginning. The rest of the book would stay blank.

He would let go of all his desperate attempts to make sense of himself and just accept things the way they were. Instead of filling the pages with his confused rambling, he would leave them blank and make his own choices without worrying about trying to puzzle out why he had made them and what they might mean for him. It was time to let go of the past and all this futile searching, and look to the future, taking each day as it came. He thought that he could probably figure out who he was without this crutch.

It would, of course, be easier said than done. Right now he was feeling pretty confident about his decision, but he knew that actually accomplishing all this would be difficult. But it was a start, and he would never get anywhere unless he took that first step.

"And what are you going to do with all of that?" Lyon asked.

Gray closed what remained of the notebook and slipped it back into his coat pocket as he turned to stare contemplatively at the pile of papers beside him.

"Hmm…"

Shrugging, he picked up a few of the pages from the top of the stack and began ripping them into smaller pieces, like confetti. The feeling of paper shredding beneath his fingers was satisfying and empowering, and he suddenly wanted to rip up the whole damn thing. So he gave the same treatment to the other pages as well, ignoring his friends' confused queries.

When he'd finished, he gathered up all the pieces as best he could, brushing off the ones that fell to the wayside, and stood. As a breeze blew off the river and swirled around him, he tossed his armful of shredded 'memories' into the air. The wind picked them up and carried them along, and soon the air was filled with a whirlwind of dancing paper.

Gray felt his lips curve upwards as he watched the spectacle in satisfaction.

"A little overdramatic, isn't it?" Lyon asked dryly as he pulled himself to his feet.

Gray shrugged again. "Yeah, probably. But it makes me feel better."

He supposed that it was more symbolic than anything else—a way for him to let go of the physical manifestation of his attempts to jam together the pieces of himself, even if actually letting go of the underlying issue would be more difficult. But still, there was something uplifting about getting rid of it all. Part of him wanted to reach out and snatch up all the pieces, try to put them all back together because it felt a little like he was throwing himself away again, but mostly he felt lighter, like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders.

"Wow, you really made a mess," Natsu commented. "Way to trash the entire river."

Gray laughed. "It's paper—the elements will break it down."

He thought that maybe it was fitting that he had done this here, where he and Natsu had dropped his gravestone into the river. That whole incident had been for helping Natsu let go and find closure, and this now was supposed to do something similar for Gray. And he figured that if he needed to bury all these pieces of his past somewhere so that he could move forward, he might as well bury them alongside the gravestone.

_(('Or maybe you just like it because deep down, you still feel the pull to death and nonexistence. You will always belong to the void.))_

"Oh, are you back again?" Gray asked indulgently.

He reached out and plucked one of the fluttering shreds of paper from the air as the blizzard began to abate, the rest of the paper settling downward to coat the grass and float in the river. Turning the paper over in his hands, he smiled slightly as he saw the word written there. There were broken pieces of words cut off by the ragged tears edging the scrap, but he only really cared about the word scrawled right across the center. Smiling to himself, he began carefully paring down the shred of paper, tearing off thin strips until the other words were gone and only one remained. It was quite a fortuitous coincidence that out of all the words that had been floating in the air, he had managed to find exactly the one he needed.

"Well, you're right," he said as he worked on purifying the paper scrap. "I belonged there once, but only after you took away everything that made me myself. And part of me, the part you twisted and changed and broke, will always belong there, I think. But in the end, I still belong here. I always have."

_(('You still feel the pull. You long for the void.'))_

"That's true too," Gray agreed mildly. "But it scares me as much as it entices me. I don't want to go back, so I won't."

He'd always thought that the fact that the curse used his own feelings and thoughts made it harder to combat, but although there was some truth to that, it also made it easier in a way. Gray might have felt these things once, but he'd been overcoming them, hadn't he? He'd done it before—mostly—so he already had a template for how to face their reemergence.

_(('You don't have a choice–'))_

"Stupid," he interrupted, shaking his head. "There's always a choice. Shouldn't you know that? You know everything I know, and I know that. And let's be honest, if you could force me to go back then you would have done it already. It's ultimately my choice and you can't force me. So if I choose not to play your games, what are you going to do about it?"

Gray waited, but the curse didn't respond. He smiled to himself. "That's what I thought."

It occurred to him that he usually thought of the curse as belonging to the void, but maybe it wasn't that simple. Maybe it wasn't him, or part of him, that still belonged to the void, but rather was that the curse now belonged to _him_. He had spent a lot of time trying to figure out how all the pieces of himself had changed and fragmented, and even more time trying to fit them back together again. Perhaps the curse was really just another one of these pieces, one that hadn't exactly been part of him before but was now. Or maybe it was some combination of both. In either case, the curse was just one more piece of the puzzle that was himself. And he would figure it out, someday.

Gray turned to look at Natsu and Lyon, now that the curse had been temporarily silenced and his paper blizzard had fizzled out of existence. They were watching him cautiously, and he couldn't exactly blame them. He figured it must be disconcerting to watch him talk to something they couldn't see or hear.

"I'm ready to go back to the guild now," he said, slipping the last shred of paper into his pocket.

His friends eyed him curiously, but he just shrugged. Let them wonder.

"Are you sure?" Natsu asked.

Gray nodded. "Yeah. I'm sure."

With one last backward glance at the river and all that was buried there, he started up the bank. After a moment, Lyon and Natsu followed and fell into step, one on either side of him.

"You know," Natsu said carefully, "if you need some more time and you aren't really ready yet, you can stay here for a bit instead of coming with us to Alvarez. The others will understand. And I'm sure Lyon wouldn't mind staying with you."

"You could definitely stay with me," Lyon agreed hurriedly.

Gray chuckled. "Relax. I'm not going to have a breakdown in enemy territory and jeopardize our mission."

"That's not why–"

"I know," he interrupted, eyeing his friends with amusement. "But seriously, I'll be fine. I think it'll be good for me—give me an opportunity to make my own choices and figure out where to go from here. And it's been forever since I've been out on a real mission. Besides, I want to help find Jii-chan. It'll feel good to have the whole guild back together again."

The guild just hadn't felt right when he hadn't quite been himself and Jii-chan was missing. One of those issues had been resolved, and Gray was looking forward to helping fix the other. Besides, he missed the old geezer.

"Oh, and he'll still think you're dead," Lyon said with a sigh, shaking his head in sudden resignation. "And with how old he is, your sudden resurrection will probably give him a heart attack."

Gray just laughed. "He's tough. I think he'll survive."

Natsu cracked a smile. "I think it would take more than that to kill the old man. Although, after everything he's been through, that would be a pretty pathetic way to go."

Lyon's lips quirked upwards for a moment, before his face set itself back into worried lines. "Are you sure you'll be alright?" he asked quietly.

"Yeah, you worry too much," Gray said. "Relax. I'm sure you can count on Natsu to mother-hen me the whole time, and the rest of the guild is still ridiculously overprotective too. Just because you won't be there doesn't mean that I'll be alone."

"Alright," Lyon said reluctantly.

Gray smirked. "Don't worry, you can fuss over me all you want when I get back."

Lyon stared at him for a second before laughing and finally relaxing a little. "I'll hold you to that. You'll be sick and tired of me by the end."

Gray's smirk melted into a slight wisp of a smile. "Never," he murmured, glancing away.

They turned a corner and the guild hall came into view. Lyon just swallowed hard and stayed quiet as they walked the last few paces. Gray paused outside the building for a moment, before pushing the doors open to reveal the jumble of mages within.

"Home sweet home," he said fondly.

* * *

_'He tells his friends that he isn't feeling well so he's going home early to rest. He doesn't know how convincing this is to the team since they saw him fall apart on Galuna a couple weeks ago, but it's hitting him hard today and he wants to be alone._

_He really is planning to sleep even though it's not even dark yet, because he's just tired of hurting and he wants a reprieve. It takes him a long time to fall asleep and he wakes up only a couple hours later, gasping in panic as he breaks free of a nightmare. The walls seem to be closing in on him, so he shoves his way out of his apartment and walks the streets restlessly instead._

_He runs into Lucy and half-wishes that he'd just stayed inside. She asks if he's alright, so he says he's fine and asks what she's doing. She says that Natsu and Happy took over her apartment again and she threatened to call Erza to make them leave. She could hardly fail to follow through on her threat, but she already looked in the guild and Erza went home for the night._

_He offers to walk her home and remove the intruders, mostly because he's decided that maybe he doesn't really want to be alone right now after all. Maybe she senses that, because she gives him a concerned look and accepts. He takes her home and drags Natsu outside, and they throw a few halfhearted punches until the dragon slayer freezes and asks if he's feeling better. He shrugs and says yes. Natsu exchanges a look with Happy and then they say that they'll walk him home to make sure he actually stays there this time._

_He puts up a few feeble protests, but walks with them without much of a fuss. He could use the company for a few minutes. When they reach his apartment, Natsu hesitates and starts exchanging those weird looks with Happy again. He waits patiently, knowing that he and Natsu are both too proud to offer or accept any more help than has already been given. Sure enough, Natsu says goodnight and leaves with Happy, throwing him one last glance._

_He wonders if he has that haunted look in his eyes again. He knows that it's there sometimes even if he tries to hide it, and it seems like maybe his friends could read something in his face tonight. He checks in the mirror to be sure, but the broken look he's expecting isn't there, even though it was probably there a few minutes ago. There's a little melancholy, a little hurt, but his lips are curved upwards in the faintest of half-smiles. Maybe, he reflects, leaving the guild early today hadn't been such a great decision. As much as he always thinks he wants to be alone when he's upset, he always seems to feel much better when he's with his friends.'_

_._

_'If you felt better with your friends, why did you always hide things and run off by yourself? Wouldn't it be better to let them in instead of shut them out?'_

* * *

Gray stood in the doorway, his eyes devouring the scene hungrily. The guild had a cheery atmosphere, with everyone laughing and joking around. Now that their rescue plans had been finalized and they'd agreed to head to Alvarez within the next couple days, some of the tension had faded. They were enjoying these last couple days before embarking on their newest adventure.

They didn't notice Gray and the others immediately, so he took a second to really study and appreciate them. There was Happy trying to flirt with an aloof Charle, his gift of fish untouched as Wendy unsuccessfully pleaded with her Exceed to be friendlier. Erza appeared singularly uninterested in anything besides the piece of strawberry cake in front of her. Lucy was trying to talk to Levy, but kept breaking off to yell at Loke for flirting with her. Gajeel had given up on trying to get Levy's attention without admitting that was what he was doing, and ended up gravitating towards Juvia and Pantherlily instead. Cana, of course, was happily drinking away beside Macao and Wakaba, her cards spread out in front of her.

"Some things never change," Gray remarked, smiling faintly.

It was nice to see everyone acting more like themselves again. Some things had certainly changed, but there was something comforting about the familiarity of seeing Happy's unsuccessful flirting or Erza's continued love of strawberry cake. In a world where a lot had changed and Gray was still uncertain of how he himself was different, it felt good to see that some things were still the same despite everything that had happened.

"Of course," Lyon said from behind him. "The same goes for you too, you know. You might have changed some, but in a lot of important ways, you're still very much the same."

Gray let out a breath and nodded. "Yeah. I know."

Erza looked up from her plate and finally noticed the newcomers. "Oh good, you're back," she said, sounding almost relieved. Then she frowned and peered at Gray more closely. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah," he replied. "I'm fine."

Erza's announcement had attracted everyone else's attention as well, and they dutifully looked over to greet the new arrivals. There were some cheerful greetings and a little teasing, but only for a few seconds. Gray noticed that they had started giving him funny looks, and some of their joviality was melting away into concern. He wondered if it was really that obvious that he'd just had a massive meltdown.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Lucy asked cautiously.

"Of course," Gray said dismissively. "Everything is fine."

"Do you want some cake? Strawberry cake is great for making you feel better," Erza suggested.

"Uh… No thanks?" Gray gave her a bemused look. Wow, something must be very obviously off about him if she was offering up her precious cake. Then it hit him, and he turned back to look at Lyon and Natsu. "Is it really that bad?"

"You look pretty terrible," Natsu admitted.

Gray sighed. He'd been crying pretty hard earlier, as embarrassing as it was to admit. Of course there would still be signs of it. His eyes still felt tender and sore from all the tears, so he could only imagine how awful they actually looked.

"Awesome," he grumbled, returning his attention back to the rest of the guild. "Seriously guys, I'm alright."

"Do you think that maybe you should tell them?" Lyon asked, his voice subdued. "You shouldn't keep hiding things."

Gray surveyed the sea of uncertain faces wearily. Telling everything to Lyon and Natsu had already put him through the wringer. Even thinking about going through all that again so quickly made him feel tired and heavy. He shook off the feeling.

"Maybe later," he said. "I'm actually feeling better now, and I'd rather not drag it all up again so quickly. I'd much rather just enjoy the good mood. It took a lot of effort to get it, and I don't want to lose it again now."

"You should come clean with them at some point," Lyon cautioned.

"Yeah. But give me time to sort some things out first." Gray wasn't sure he'd tell the others _everything_ , but he knew that he should really be honest with them. He just needed some time to figure out how to handle these issues in a better way first, so that he could explain what had been going on without getting as emotional as he had today. No more breakdowns.

He smiled at his guildmates reassuringly. "You guys worry too much." He definitely wanted to reinstate the cheerful mood that had lingered in the hall before he'd walked in, but how…? An idea hit him and he turned to Natsu, grinning widely. "Hey, flame brain, wanna fight? It's been a long time."

Gray was, in fact, itching for a fight, if only because he missed them. He hadn't really been in a brawl since the void, not even after he'd gotten his memories back. That was partly because he knew the others were having a difficult time readjusting to his normal self again and he didn't want to push them until they were ready, but also because Natsu hadn't tried starting anything. Gray wasn't sure if it was a holdover from how he'd needed to be treated while he was an amnesiac, or if perhaps Natsu had been waiting for him to initiate the return of the habit as well. Perhaps each party was just worried about how fragile the other might still be. Whatever the case, neither of them had been confident enough to start the fights up again, and Gray was ready for that to change.

"Absolutely not," Erza said, instantly distracted. "We do not need the hall destroyed again, especially when we'll be leaving soon."

Gray gave her a crooked grin. "Come on Erza," he wheedled. "You know you miss it. The guild could use a good brawl, and it's been a long time since I've gotten to whack Natsu around."

Erza wavered, but an answering smile tugged at the corners of her lips. "Oh, alright," she said in defeat, trying to hide the sudden gleam in her eyes.

Gray smirked and looked back at Natsu. "What do you say, flame brain?"

Natsu was positively aglow with excitement, bouncing up and down on his heels in childish anticipation, his eyes shining and a wide grin on his face. Then he suddenly seemed to freeze, and his excitement drained away.

"This isn't just because you're upset, is it?" he asked.

Gray frowned in confusion. He racked his brain but came up empty. "No? What do you mean?"

Natsu began digging through his pocket. It took him several seconds to find what he was looking for, but he eventually pulled out a folded up piece of paper. Unfolding the page and trying unsuccessfully to smooth out the creases, Natsu handed it to Gray wordlessly.

Gray took it and read it over, his eyes widening as he recognized the words.

* * *

_'He's young, a child even if he maybe doesn't feel like one anymore. Sad that day. Guilty? Something's wrong, but he doesn't want to be sad anymore. Better to be angry—it hurts less. He's really angry at himself, but it's so much easier to look for reasons to be angry at everything—everyone—else instead. But it still hurts, and he needs to hurt on the outside the same way he hurts on the inside. A distraction? A punishment? He isn't sure._

_Easiest way is to find Natsu and start a fight. Today he lets Natsu win because he needs to feel the loss, maybe because he deserves it. But he puts up a fight first because he needs the pain of the punches and kicks, because they hurt less than the heartache. He realizes that it isn't fair. He's basically using Natsu now, goading the dragon slayer into hurting him because he's afraid that if he does it himself, he'll never be able to stop. All the anger he made himself feel for Natsu is fading now, turning inwards because that's where it belonged all along. He wants to apologize, even opens his mouth to say it, but the words stick in his throat and he just limps away instead. He tells himself that this is the last time this will happen, that he'll be nicer to Natsu and all the others and won't try to goad them into helping him punish himself anymore, but he knows that it's a lie and he hates himself for it.'_

_._

_'That can't possibly be healthy. What a screwed up kid.'_

* * *

Behind him, Lyon exhaled shakily, and Gray knew the older man was reading over his shoulder.

"Where did you get this?" he asked. It should be in pieces, scattered over the riverbank along with everything else he had torn from the notebook, but here it was.

Natsu shifted uncomfortably. "I, uh, took it out of the notebook. There were a lot of things in there that bothered me, but this one stuck with me the most. Sorry, I probably shouldn't have done that, but…"

Gray sighed and let his fingers brush across the inked words absently. He wondered how long ago Natsu had removed this. Somehow he had never even noticed that it was missing, despite how often he'd looked over the notebook's contents.

"I never meant for you to see this," he said. "You weren't supposed to know. There were a lot of things in that notebook that I never would have shown you if I was in my right mind."

"I'd rather know," Natsu said shortly. "I'd prefer it if you'd stop hiding everything."

Gray wondered if maybe this paper was part of the reason Natsu hadn't tried initiating a fight yet. He hadn't meant to make his friend doubt such an integral part of their friendship.

"Maybe you're right," he said, subdued. "Hiding things is what got me into this mess in the first place, isn't it?"

He fell silent, debating what to say. He frowned down at the writing, focusing on the last two sentences. His amnesic self had often written comments after transcribing the memories, in an attempt to understand 'Gray' better. And oddly enough, those comments had been the most helpful thing about the notebook. Without his memories, Gray hadn't had the same context for each snippet of memory and had been removed from his normal mindset. He hadn't had the same guilt or sadness or fear that had colored them, and therefore he had been able to look at them more objectively.

In a way, it had helped him start coming to terms with some of the things from his past. That commentary had made good points, and revealed truths that Gray had always known on some level but had a hard time accepting. Reading over them again gave him a new perspective on not only his memories, but also on his state of mind before this whole mess. Sometimes getting a stranger's point of view was helpful, especially if that stranger was yourself.

Maybe he should have followed his own amnesic self's advice from the start and gone to the guild when he needed help, rather than hiding everything. He never had seemed to like being alone as much as he thought he did.

"Yes," he said finally, "I felt this way once. But you know… That was a long time ago, and I've grown up a lot since then."

He folded the paper in half neatly, and then began tearing it into pieces. Natsu made a startled sound in the back of his throat.

Gray raised an eyebrow at him. "Why are you so surprised? I said that I was trying to let things go, didn't I?"

He backtracked a few paces to push open the doors of the guild again. Holding the door open with his foot, he hesitated a moment and stared down at the handful of scraps. Then he steeled himself and tossed them out into the street, watching them swirl around like paper leaves. The urge to reach out and gather up all those pieces again was strong, but he pushed it away. Instead, he just leaned against the doorframe and watched them contemplatively.

"It's not some elaborate way to punish myself, if that's what you're thinking," he said. "Okay, the fights didn't have a great start. Mostly it was because you were annoying and I didn't like you. And yeah, sometimes I used them as a way to deliberately get myself hurt. But I also started enjoying them, and over time you and I became pretty great friends and the fights turned into something a lot more fun.

"It's kind of like how I didn't particularly like most any of you guys at first, but you all grew on me, and look where we are now. Things have certainly changed since then. Things change, and that's not always a bad thing." He looked down and studied his empty hands for a few seconds before letting his breath out in a shuddering sigh. "Maybe it's not such a bad thing."

There was a long pause.

"That's what we've been trying to tell you," Natsu said finally, his voice quiet. "It's okay if you've changed."

Gray nodded to himself. He hoped that maybe it wouldn't be so bad. Some things would stay the same, some would change, and maybe that was how it was supposed to be. One day, he'd figure it out for sure.

He turned back to face the others, plastering a smirk on his face. "So, are you ready to get your ass kicked, squinty eyes?"

Natsu stared at him blankly for a moment before grinning back, his eyes lighting with anticipation. "Bring it on, droopy eyes! I'm totally gonna win!"

"I don't understand how you can change gears so quickly," Lyon muttered tiredly, shaking his head. "It's so hard to keep up with you sometimes."

Gray just laughed, before arching an eyebrow at Natsu and making a 'bring it on' gesture. The dragon slayer smirked and obliged.

* * *

_'He's fighting with Natsu again, but it's mostly for show because they're having fun. Erza is threatening to step in and she and Lucy are starting to get annoyed, but he feels a smile creeping over his face. Natsu pauses and gives him a funny look, but then grins back, and suddenly the two of them are just laughing for no reason at all. The girls are saying that they're crazy idiots and maybe that's true, but he doesn't care. Right now it's enough to just have them and Natsu and Happy here, because they make him happy, and when he's with them he feels like he belongs.'_

_._

_'That sounds like such a nice feeling. I don't understand… Don't ever let that go. If you can feel it, don't ever let it go.'_

* * *

It didn't take much for the whole guild to join in. Gray suspected that they might have been waiting for this, even if they perhaps hadn't realized it in so many words. He and Natsu fought hard and fast, punches and stray magic flying as if nothing had ever happened to change this, and Gray slipped back into the rhythm easily, relieved that it still felt familiar and comforting. Around them, everyone else broke into their own fights as well. Even Erza joined in when Natsu accidentally knocked her cake over, ranting in theatrical rage even though her eyes were shining. Lyon tried to slink away and avoid the crazy guild's antics, but Erza wasn't having it and dragged him in, although he appeared more amused than irritated.

But Gray didn't have a lot of time to pay attention to the chaos all around him, because Natsu wasn't pulling his punches. Which was just as well, because Gray didn't want that. For once, it was nice that he wasn't being treated like fragile glass. Natsu was treating him exactly like he had before the void, not making concessions for everything that had happened after, and Gray loved it. He liked knowing that this was one thing that hadn't changed, liked being able to feel like himself again. Maybe some things had changed, but he was glad that this wasn't one of them.

He wasn't sure how long they'd been fighting, but the taunts and teasing and grins were infectious, and Natsu certainly wasn't holding back anymore. Gray wasn't either. Then Natsu threw a punch that Gray dodged, but instead of leaving it alone and counterattacking, the ice mage grabbed the dragon slayer's wrist firmly. Natsu scowled and tried to tug it away, but Gray held on. Reaching into his pocket with his free hand, Gray pulled out the one last remaining scrap of paper and pressed it into Natsu's palm.

Natsu blinked at him in confusion, but when Gray made no move to attack again, he looked down at the paper. Gray waited quietly, knowing that Natsu had been dying of curiosity ever since he'd first seen the ice mage slip the paper into his pocket. Gray shouldn't be hiding things from his friends, after all. He shouldn't be hiding the bad things, but he shouldn't be hiding the good ones either.

Natsu stared down at that single word for a moment before looking back up at Gray. "Do you really need the paper?" he asked finally, his voice unreadable.

Gray let his gaze drift away, across the battle still raging all around them. For a few seconds he watched all his friends trading blows as they smiled and teased and laughed. Then he looked back at Natsu and grinned crookedly.

"No," he said. "I don't."

Natsu smiled back. Summoning up some flames in his hand, the paper disintegrated. He was watching carefully to see how his friend would react, but Gray didn't move immediately. He stared at the fine rain of ash floating to the ground, trying to sort out his thoughts.

Part of him wanted to punch Natsu and gather up whatever was left of the paper, because it meant something to him and he felt its sudden absence keenly. But mostly he felt relieved, like the paper had been a heavy weight sitting on his chest that had now been removed. Gray didn't need paper reminders any more than he'd needed paper memories, and it felt good to have let go of the very last piece of the notebook. And if it left a void within him… Well, he could fill that back up with something more meaningful than paper, and he'd have his family to help him do it.

He tore his gaze away from the ashes and looked back up at Natsu, who was shifting about anxiously. Gray smiled, and Natsu relaxed visibly.

Then Gray punched him in the face.

Natsu reeled back in shock, gaping at Gray with the most flabbergasted expression the ice mage had ever seen. It cracked Gray up, and he howled with laughter. After a few more seconds of disbelief, Natsu grinned and launched himself back at Gray again.

They were both laughing now as they traded punches, and it seemed like everyone else was laughing and having a good time too. Gray was just glad that everyone had managed to forget about the past months, at least for a few minutes, and was happy. Gray felt happy too, and his identity crisis fell to the wayside for the moment. Because no matter what else had changed, this would always, always, be

* * *

_'home.'_

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't like happy endings with zero consequences, if you couldn't tell. Okay, some parts were kind of gimmicky, some were kind of cheesy, but I had a lot of fun writing it. Plus I had enjoyed writing that one memory for the notebook and was sad that I didn't have an excuse to write more, so I made one :D (Yes, the notebook memories are meant to parallel the parentheses in the epilogue of "Stay".)
> 
> Well, this is the end of the "Stay" verse. Thanks for all the support.

**Author's Note:**

> Pretty standard, I guess. And man, that ending was cheesy and really fluffy (my God, I used the word "snuggled" x.x) but, uh, there are indeed reasons behind it. Why yes, they are rather angsty reasons. Do you even need to ask that by now? XD But yeah, I thought it would be good to tie up loose ends.


End file.
